by Sarah Stevens
Take a minute and think back to learning math in your early years. Think about when you were first introduced to fractions, long division, multiplying multi-digit numbers, or decimals. How did you feel while learning those topics? Did they make you excited to learn math? Did they inspire you to keep pursuing it? Or did they leave you feeling frustrated—maybe even feeling like you weren’t good at math or that math just wasn’t for you?
I have the unique opportunity to hear people’s math stories whenever I tell them I’m a math teacher. Some people say, “Oh, I loved math as a kid!” But more often, adults tell me about the topic they just couldn’t overcome or the year they decided they weren’t a “math person.” Almost every time, their next question is something like, “But why did we have to change math? Can’t we just go back to teaching the standard algorithms instead of all these new strategies?”
Those two statements have always confused me. My initial reaction was, If math wasn’t a good experience for you, why would you want your child to have the same experience? Wouldn’t you want something better for them—something that helps them avoid feeling inadequate or frustrated by math?
The more I’ve thought about it, though, the more I’ve realized that wanting your child to learn math the way you did may have less to do with believing the old way was better and more to do with wanting to be able to help them.
And I understand that. You want to be able to support your child. You are meant to be their greatest coach—to guide them, encourage them, and learn alongside them with the support of their school. So when your child brings home a strategy you don’t recognize, it can create anxiety. It may even bring back some of the feelings you experienced with math when you were young.
I can imagine how difficult that can be but I also know that you want what is best for your child. You want them to pursue their dreams, find success, and become confident in whatever they choose to do. And the reality is that math is more important than ever.
The ways we teach math at The Village School will often look different from the ways you learned. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned as a math educator is that standard algorithms become incredibly important as students get older—but they don’t always make sense to young mathematicians.
When we introduce an algorithm before students understand the math behind it, it can actually make math more confusing. It can also leave very little room for inaccuracy. Math is messy. Learning is messy. And we believe some of the best learning happens when we make mistakes, examine them, and try again.
Think about what it feels like when the only measure of success is getting the answer right. You make an error, the answer is marked wrong, and over time that can quietly reinforce the belief that you simply aren’t good at math.
Now imagine having a strategy that doesn’t require you to know the most efficient step right away. A strategy that allows you to keep making progress even when your thinking isn’t perfectly efficient. Maybe you don’t immediately recognize that 6 goes into 30 five times. Instead, you take away 6 twice, then again, and again. It takes longer, but you can keep going until you reach the correct answer.
That’s one of the things I love about these strategies: they give learners room to be inefficient without being unsuccessful. Over time, as students build their number sense and develop a deeper understanding of mathematics, they often discover the more efficient strategies for themselves.
How much more confident would you have felt if you knew that not knowing the fastest way to solve a problem didn’t mean you were going to get it wrong? What if you knew you could keep working, make progress, and eventually figure it out?
At The Village School, we believe young people are far more capable than we sometimes give them credit for—and I think this is especially true in mathematics. When we give learners the opportunity to explore different strategies, many eventually discover the standard algorithm because they recognize that it is an efficient way to solve the problem. The beauty of this approach is that they have discovered it. They understand why each step works because they understand the mathematics behind the procedure rather than simply memorizing a series of steps.
There will still be moments when you feel your anxiety rising. You may look at the strategy your child is using and have no idea how to do it yourself. When that happens, I encourage you to pause. Take a breath. Ask your child to explain their thinking to you.
Learn it together.
You might just discover that math isn’t as scary as you once thought—and, even better, you might help your child discover that they are far more capable at math than they ever imagined.
