Fast Math

My friend and fellow blogger Alissa has a son Brianna's age who is going through "quarterly assessment" testing at his school. One of the areas of assessment is math. Her brief comments about this got me thinking back to math tests of my own childhood, how I'm approaching math with Brianna, and how I might approach it with Alexander. I don't blog much about our homeschooling specifics, but I find this topic worth exploring a little bit.

Thankfully, I attended school before the current obsession with standardized testing and constant assessment. I took state standardized tests in 4th, 7th, and 10th grades, but the teachers didn't make a big deal out of them beyond making sure we knew how to properly fill in the bubbles. (Bubble tests were rare indeed!) The first tests that really felt "high stakes" to me were the tests I took for college entrance -- the ACT, SAT, and AP exams. By then I was an older teen and able to handle the pressure.

Nevertheless, my 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Frank, decided to introduce some "high stakes" testing of her own. Every week we had "time tests" in math. These consisted of a strip of about 25 math problems that we were to complete as fast as possible. The times of each student -- adjusted somehow for accuracy -- were posted for all to see. I believe they were even charted on a graph. I was one of those kids who was very accurate if given adequate time, but I could be slow to come to an answer. Time pressure only befuddled my brain, so my times were always near the bottom of the class even though I was capable of doing the problems presented. Needless to say, I exited 2nd grade with the (false) impression that I was bad at math. This incorrect belief lasted for years and negatively affected my math education.

So you can imagine my conflicted feelings when Brianna's math curriculum suggested "practice sheets" -- strips of about 25 math problems that the child should do repeatedly with a goal of finishing accurately in about 1 minute. Ack - Time Tests! Understand, they only suggest this *well* after the child has become proficient at solving addition problems mentally using a number of strategies not to include counting. The sole purpose of the practice sheets are to increase speed. I can't argue with the practicality of this. Brianna is highly proficient at maniuplating numbers mentally to solve problems, but when adding 3 digit numbers, all that manipulation takes time. Once you know what you're doing, it's much more convenient to have the basic facts committed to memory.

Uncomfortable with the timing aspect but understanding the rational, I decided to give Brianna the choice. She chose to time herself, and with her father's stopwatch, no less! The timing does not seem to add to her anxiety or make solving the problems more difficult, as it did for me. I suspect it's because she's only competing with herself. She has no idea how she would measure up against other 1st graders, nor does it occur to her to wonder about that. She's well above the 1 minute goal time -- more like 2:40, but I think that's due more to her slowness in writing than to not knowing the answers. When she dictates the answers to me, she's around 1 1/2 minutes, depending on the difficulty of the problems. In any case, it doesn't seem to phase her. I make sure to note her 100% accuracy, and assure her that accuracy is more important than speed. I don't recall Mrs. Frank every praising my accuracy. (She may have done, but so much emphasis was on speed that if she did, it didn't make an impression.)

Alexander's preschool teacher commented during our conference today about how good he was at math. I was a bit surprised to hear this -- not because I think he's slow, but because at home he does very little math talk or play that I see. (Unless I count being able to look at a Lego diagram and copy it fairly well, which I *should*!) Brianna did much more conventional math play at his age, and would ask to do math lessons for fun. Alexander asked for lessons a couple of times, then stopped. I think the difference isn't in math ability, but in how the children approach learning. Brianna's learning is so easy for me to see. She goes about it quite conventionally, as I did, so I recognize it. When we do math lessons together 3 or 4 times a week, I see the progress and know exactly what she can and cannot do. Alexander seems to draw from more diverse sources and then manifest his knowledge in ways that I don't always recognize immediately. (Like the Legos.) Homeschooling is going to be more challenging with him simply because he and I do not share a common learning style. Nevertheless, I think it will be fun and nearly as educational for me as it will be for him!

Real Moms Get Used to Gross

It starts with that first meconium-filled diaper. Maybe it's the first "poo" diaper you've ever changed, or perhaps you've confronted the messy diapers of a niece or nephew, or a baby sitting charge. In any case, you may notice -- or you may not, in your post-birth fugue -- that it's not as distasteful to deal with as you would have thought; not quite as nose-wrinkling as the messes of those other babies that were not yours. Good thing, because that little bit of mucky stuff is nothing compared to what awaits you: diaper blowouts that reach from your baby's hair to her socks, smelly "big kid" poos smashed into your toddler's training pants, preschooler vomit all over your preschooler, his bed, you, and your bed at 3 AM, and cold after cold bringing snot, snot, and more snot for you to wipe from nose, face, hands, shirt, nearby surfaces, and yourself.

Amazingly, moms are universally able to cope with all this and more (bloody gashes requiring stitches, anyone?) without tossing their cookies or even feeling queasy most of the time. (Unless they are in their first trimester of a pregnancy, than all bets are off!) Sure, we may wrinkle our noses, or let slip and "Oh yuck!" now and then, but we quickly do what needs to be done, wash our hands with plenty of soap, then get back to making dinner.

I thought about this the other night after I dug a large booger from Alexander's nose with a Q-Tip. It was bothering him to the point of not being able to sleep, and no amount of nose-blowing would dislodge it. It was indeed a pretty gross procedure, though not the grossest thing I've done for my kids by a long shot. Nevertheless, for just a moment, I lost my "mom" perspective and allowed myself to dwell on the "ick" factor of what I had just done. I let out a cough which ended in a bit of a gag. Then I got hold of myself and went on with life like the real mom that I am.

Note: This post is in response to a Real Moms tag from my friend Jennifer. It looks like it started as a contest, which anyone can still enter up until May 11 if they follow all the rules in the link above. However, several bloggers before me have deviated from the rules, and I'm not jumping through every hoop either. I love it as simply a tag theme that threads together many mom bloggers who may not even know one another. I'm tagging Ma and Jenny!

The original rules of the Real Mom challenge say to include a picture. (See note and link above.) I debated taking a photo of Alexander's mostly-clean nostrils, but he's asleep right now. Real moms do NOT risk waking a preschooler at 11 pm with a camera flash. So just for fun, I looked through my digital photo files and found a picture of a not-so-gross mess that I once had to clean up. :o)