Here's hoping you read the title of my blog, "Mathematical!" in the voice of Finn, from the cartoon Adventure Time. One of my favourite things about the quirky kids show was its use of math related terms as synonyms for "awesome" or "cool". Too often kids are led to believe that math is stuffy and boring, and something of a chore. I personally felt this way throughout my high school career. Although I was by no means a poor math student, it was the one subject that I felt did not come naturally to me. Math seemed like an intangible burden, one that I would never be able to truly divine. I felt into the popular mode of thinking, believing math was for mathematicians, but certainly not for me. It wasn't fun and it certainly wasn't worth getting excited about.
When I first caught wind of Adventure Time's 12 year old hero shouting phrases like "mathematical!" or "that's so rhombus!" as he defeated villains, I couldn't help but love the quiet suggestion the cartoon was making. By associating mathematics with Finn's heroics or cool discoveries, Adventure Time was subtly hinting that maybe math wasn't so drab after all. Perhaps it could be fun, and even useful.
By the time I left my first 8P29 class, I was determined to adopt Adventure Time's attitude toward the subject that I had once snubbed. Mathematics didn't have to be intimidating or difficult. It also didn't have to be about right or wrong answers. Sometime the questions asked were the most important aspect of math themselves.
I'm sure you all saw my little doodle of the stereotypical mathematician verses ourselves when our instructor held it up for the class. But what you didn't see were the changes I made to the drawing as the class progressed. Initially I had drawn the image of myself frowning; my thought bubble filled with unorganized numbers and symbols. As open minded as I wanted to be about mathematics, I certainly didn't think I'd ever be happy about solving a math problem. But by the time my paper had been held up for you to see, I'd already made some changes:
When I first caught wind of Adventure Time's 12 year old hero shouting phrases like "mathematical!" or "that's so rhombus!" as he defeated villains, I couldn't help but love the quiet suggestion the cartoon was making. By associating mathematics with Finn's heroics or cool discoveries, Adventure Time was subtly hinting that maybe math wasn't so drab after all. Perhaps it could be fun, and even useful.
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| Glarbinator. (2013, December 4). Mathematical Finn! [digital drawing]. Retrieved from http://fav.me/d6wq85n |
By the time I left my first 8P29 class, I was determined to adopt Adventure Time's attitude toward the subject that I had once snubbed. Mathematics didn't have to be intimidating or difficult. It also didn't have to be about right or wrong answers. Sometime the questions asked were the most important aspect of math themselves.
I'm sure you all saw my little doodle of the stereotypical mathematician verses ourselves when our instructor held it up for the class. But what you didn't see were the changes I made to the drawing as the class progressed. Initially I had drawn the image of myself frowning; my thought bubble filled with unorganized numbers and symbols. As open minded as I wanted to be about mathematics, I certainly didn't think I'd ever be happy about solving a math problem. But by the time my paper had been held up for you to see, I'd already made some changes:
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| Inrig, E. (2016, September 12). Mathematician vs Me [poorly drawn scribble on paper]. Retrieved from my binder. |
Instead of a frown, I opted for a small smile. And my thought bubble was now filled with question marks rather than jumbled nonsense. I realized I didn't have to feel afraid of math, just because I didn't have a math degree. Asking questions could be just as important as the answers that those questions lead to, as explained by Dan Meyer in his TED Talk. Just from one class, much of my perspective changed, and I felt much more at ease about teaching math to kids.