Right-brained Quote of the Day
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 04:55PM I stole this quote from a post by my friend Cindy on the Homeschooling Creatively email list during a discussion about math.
So, I greatly disagree with you that "basics" have to be learned before
"complex". For our right-brained learners, often "complex" is easy and
"basics" are hard, so why not have the complex be their true representation
of their style of learning? In other words, "complex" is their "basic" and
"basic" is their "complex". So, when we hold them to their left-brained
counterpart criteria, we are making them do hard first and fun last. Why
not fun first and hard last, like their left-brained peers get to enjoy?
Our culture has determined what is "basic" and what is "complex". It
doesn't mean it is so or it is the only or even preferred method to acquire
knowledge under various subjects.
I have found that contrary to popular wisdom, Jason learns better by focusing on the high-level concepts (which engage his right brain) and filling in the "math facts" as we go along, rather than following the more typical sequential approach to math of focusing on having the math facts "mastered" before moving on.
Reader Comments (5)
I've known for some time that Owen would come to math in his own time, and I still wrung my hands a bit waiting, wondering if I was doing enough, uncomfortable leaving the math facts out of our homeschooling days. Well, just recently Owen has begun to ask a lot of math questions. Quite spontaneously he asks what the sum of two numbers is, he tells us that this number is odd- that one even, and just seems to be percolating a bit more than usual with math facts/concepts. He spent an hour and a half online at the Cyberchase site with no urging from me! We still use Living Math books, and play games but I was wondering if I should be capitalizing on this new math readiness or if I'm in danger of squashing it and should carry on as usual.
This is similar to the way my son "Marty" learns. We plunged ahead with multi-digit multiplication, factoring, prime numbers and so forth while he was still mastering basic multiplication facts. I have also found that he isn't ready for sequential, multi-step processes -- multi-digit multiplication that he can't do in his head. So I just showed him how to estimate and use a calculator, then we moved on. Why bore him by drilling him in these things until his head explodes? :-)
I am very interested in hearing more about the higher level concepts Jason is learning. What kind of math is he doing?
Padawan Learner does as well.
Hey Stephanie,
Speaking of "stealing" quotes and such, in my book, I'm trying to start each chapter with a story of some sort, or a blog post of such. For one of my chapters, I'm thinking of starting with a post about the benefits of video games. Didn't you write one? Could I potentially "steal" it for my book?
Let me know.
Cindy
This is Christopher... He is right brained, and I am ill brained... What a mix we make.