I say I sat down to help, but the truth is that arithmetic and are are actually not the best of friends. In fact, I get sweaty palms and feel a warm flush just thinking about my own experiences in ye old math classes.
I was what fancy folks now call Gifted/SLD with very strong verbal skills and frighteningly challenged mathematical skills. Most of my teachers didn't understand my kind of ability back then and I spent a lot of time feeling humiliated by both my inabilities (why can't you get this) and my abilities (how can someone so smart be so dumb). Suffice it to say, these memories do not signal the highlight of my youth.
It helps for you to know this because it will explain the emotional roller coaster that I experienced from approximately 4:15 to 4:30 on that fateful afternoon.
I heard the call, panicked, put on a happy face and sat beside him. My knee twitched as I pulled out my iPhone and opened the YouTube app and took a deep breath. (This is what I do when my kids ask for help outside of the language arts. There is always someone out there who can help me out). Then I saw the assignment: decimals & exponents. We were dividing numbers like 1.23 by 10 to the second power.
Hot diggity! This is math I actually know! Bring it.
My posture straightens, my brow cools. Heck, I place the iPhone face down on the table, turn to him and begin. I am eloquent (if I do say so myself) and share all the secrets I learned when I, too, had to divide and multiply decimals by integers of ten.
I smile conspiratorially, lean in & say, "This is my special trick: When you multiply, you move the decimal to the right; when you divide, you move it to the left. Like this,"
Then I launch into three examples that are truly breathtaking by all accounts. I look back at my son, expecting an amazed expression -- after all, I am just short of David Blaine level when it comes to math magic at this moment -- and he is looking at me with pity.
He shakes his head slowly with soft eyes, the way you do when someone is trying, but just not quite getting it. Then he says, "Mom, the decimal doesn't move."
Blank stare.
He tries again.
"Decimals don't move, Mom. They are fixed." He speaks the word slowly, as though I am hard of hearing or maybe not so good at the English language or maybe recently suffered a bump on the head.
He continues, "Numbers move. Like this" Then he launches into a brief explanation that involves a chart and arrows and other things that I just can't explain so I'll give you a visual (see below).
As he does, he stumbles onto the answer to his original question. He is excited; as always, my pint-sized Taurus loves to learn and he loves to be right.
He is doing his celebration dance (lots of "uh huh's" and "go me's" with a very funny face) but I am not sure what to do. On one hand, I am ecstatic that he found the answer. Ecstatic that he loves to learn and loves to succeed academically. On the other, I am back in time, feeling like I am lost in the math world. I am afraid that this corner of the academic world has (once again) left me behind and I have no idea what in the world he is talking about.
I feel obsolete and inadequate.
This is when the personal impact of the new shift to Common Core hits me. It is not as cut and dried as some folks would make it out to be. It is a wonderful and terrifying thing. It represents a change in what I knew -- and I didn't know much in that area -- and presents a whole new way of teaching and learning that leaves me (an educator by trade) feeling confused and inadequate, yet excited by what this could mean for students. At the same time, it is the key to my 5th grader "getting it," so much so that he can use what he knows to think rationally and deduce the correct process he needs to use.
The educator in me knows that is good stuff. Really good stuff.
So while I am uncertain and I am leery, I am also excited and encouraged. And I can't help but wonder if someone had laid a similar foundation down for me, would I feel the way I do about math today, or would I be empowered by my deductive reasoning skills the way my son has?
Not sure, but it's definitely food for thought.
Until next,
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