I am undoubtedly much older than you are. When I was a small child I knew that my phone number was 54J. That is so small I couldn’t help learning it.
Your description of how you got turned on to math sounds like that of many mathematicians I know. The ingredients vary. I think I am less contrarian than you (probably to my detriment) and I did have one high school teacher who actually got me interested in solid geometry. Some mathematicians I know (not me) grew up in families that were interested in math and shared their interest. But what is in common with most of us a self-directed nature that makes us do what we want to do and not what people expect us to do, which is one aspect of being nerdy.
I have a very similar story to tell about my experience with math. The details of my story are slightly different, but the broad picture is almost identical.
Speaking of math education there’s some kind of minor revolution going on at Finland and Estonia. Teachers have been producing Creative Commons (BY-SA) licensed material. That could be a game changer or at least challenge the status quo.
You can find more information about the Finnish development at http://avoinoppikirja.fi/ (Google Translate seems ok).
I think these sort of moves are necessary for us to keep up with the progress. You definitely don’t want to fall behind as a nation when it comes to things like these.
Abdullahsays:
Seriously Daniel, I can always enjoy your articles and they help me start my day with an optimistic spirit. keep it up.
Dominic Amannsays:
Do not rule out the possibility that you were contrarian by nature. My daughter certainly is – she is nearly 4 now, but I know for certain she was contrarian as early as she had language. She constantly experiments with consequences, and tests our assertions.
Dominic Amannsays:
For better or worse, I think there are natural factors that cause more or less contrariness. After all, there is a psychiatric disorder something like “oppositional defiant disorder”. Like most such things, it will probably turn out that this condition is a broad spectrum rather than an on-off switch.
I consider myself something of a “disruptor” rather than a contrarian (my wife might have a different view).
Hi, I too learned math by playing monopoly. At some points I was tired of loosing everytime against so I went to the “bibliobus” (a mobile library we used to have in my birth town) and borrowed “Comment gagner au monopoly” (how to win at Monopoly) and then a discovery: the most frequent score you can do with two 6 dices is 7 (6+1, 5+2, ..) and so I started to try to learn basic probabilities (of course I failed but still, I started to win a bit more often)..
Good memory, thanks Daniel for that post 🙂
eclecticossays:
Unfortunately, my 9-year-old daughter is not very contrarian: she doesn’t object to busywork or mind that math in school is mainly easy stuff she already knows. Fortunately, she was apparently born with an interest in math — and she has her own Professor Calculus, in the form of Dick Feynman. I recently started reading her Feynman’s entertaining memoirs as her bedtime story. Whenever he mentions a math concept she wants to know all about it. First trigonometry, then e, now homotopy groups. So I try to give her a sense of the mathematical objects even though they’re far ahead of what she “ought” to be learning next. One question leads to another and we end up working back to more fundamental concepts. This curiosity-driven style of instruction might not work for all kids, or all parents, but she eats it up. It’s not very different from the way I teach grad students in my office: if they are missing some piece of math we need for a problem, I explain it on demand, working back as far as necessary. They are engaged because they need it RIGHT THEN. I am not sure whether this model of instruction can be scaled to larger classes.
Dominic Amannsays:
Well that is awesome, My dad was a teacher (and according to his students a good one), but he was always so tough on us that we did not want his help at all.
I don’t think being contrarian is entirely useful – in fact for some people it causes more trouble than good – Ashley Smith is an example. I am not contrarian in terms of tasks I will do, I just question arguments or beliefs.
I do see that contrarianism in a select few would be a darwinistic advantage for the species as a whole.
I am undoubtedly much older than you are. When I was a small child I knew that my phone number was 54J. That is so small I couldn’t help learning it.
Your description of how you got turned on to math sounds like that of many mathematicians I know. The ingredients vary. I think I am less contrarian than you (probably to my detriment) and I did have one high school teacher who actually got me interested in solid geometry. Some mathematicians I know (not me) grew up in families that were interested in math and shared their interest. But what is in common with most of us a self-directed nature that makes us do what we want to do and not what people expect us to do, which is one aspect of being nerdy.
I have a very similar story to tell about my experience with math. The details of my story are slightly different, but the broad picture is almost identical.
Speaking of math education there’s some kind of minor revolution going on at Finland and Estonia. Teachers have been producing Creative Commons (BY-SA) licensed material. That could be a game changer or at least challenge the status quo.
You can find more information about the Finnish development at http://avoinoppikirja.fi/ (Google Translate seems ok).
I think these sort of moves are necessary for us to keep up with the progress. You definitely don’t want to fall behind as a nation when it comes to things like these.
Seriously Daniel, I can always enjoy your articles and they help me start my day with an optimistic spirit. keep it up.
Do not rule out the possibility that you were contrarian by nature. My daughter certainly is – she is nearly 4 now, but I know for certain she was contrarian as early as she had language. She constantly experiments with consequences, and tests our assertions.
For better or worse, I think there are natural factors that cause more or less contrariness. After all, there is a psychiatric disorder something like “oppositional defiant disorder”. Like most such things, it will probably turn out that this condition is a broad spectrum rather than an on-off switch.
I consider myself something of a “disruptor” rather than a contrarian (my wife might have a different view).
@Dominic Amann
So there might be a contrarian gene?
Hi, I too learned math by playing monopoly. At some points I was tired of loosing everytime against so I went to the “bibliobus” (a mobile library we used to have in my birth town) and borrowed “Comment gagner au monopoly” (how to win at Monopoly) and then a discovery: the most frequent score you can do with two 6 dices is 7 (6+1, 5+2, ..) and so I started to try to learn basic probabilities (of course I failed but still, I started to win a bit more often)..
Good memory, thanks Daniel for that post 🙂
Unfortunately, my 9-year-old daughter is not very contrarian: she doesn’t object to busywork or mind that math in school is mainly easy stuff she already knows. Fortunately, she was apparently born with an interest in math — and she has her own Professor Calculus, in the form of Dick Feynman. I recently started reading her Feynman’s entertaining memoirs as her bedtime story. Whenever he mentions a math concept she wants to know all about it. First trigonometry, then e, now homotopy groups. So I try to give her a sense of the mathematical objects even though they’re far ahead of what she “ought” to be learning next. One question leads to another and we end up working back to more fundamental concepts. This curiosity-driven style of instruction might not work for all kids, or all parents, but she eats it up. It’s not very different from the way I teach grad students in my office: if they are missing some piece of math we need for a problem, I explain it on demand, working back as far as necessary. They are engaged because they need it RIGHT THEN. I am not sure whether this model of instruction can be scaled to larger classes.
Well that is awesome, My dad was a teacher (and according to his students a good one), but he was always so tough on us that we did not want his help at all.
I don’t think being contrarian is entirely useful – in fact for some people it causes more trouble than good – Ashley Smith is an example. I am not contrarian in terms of tasks I will do, I just question arguments or beliefs.
I do see that contrarianism in a select few would be a darwinistic advantage for the species as a whole.