Adventures in Pedagogy: Context Clues

Dawson and I are watching an episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the narrator opens with the usual recap of previous happenings.  Towards the end, he says something like:

"...and Anakin Skywalker thwarted the nefarious plot."

So I ask Dawson, "What does nefarious mean?"

"What do you mean, Dad?"

What's nefarious mean?  The guy just said that Anakin thwarted a nefarious plot.

*he thinks for a second*

"Well, it must be really bad because he was talking about the evil scientist."

It never ceases to amaze me how these teachable moments just fall in my lap.  I just have to be paying enough attention to them and take the time to ask a couple of questions.

I wonder how many of them I actually miss, though.

Adventures in Pedagogy: Order of Operations

Nevan (8) goes to the counter to grab a pack of gum from a box that contains four different flavors.  He says, "Hey Dad, look.  There's four different kinds of gum in here."

Oh, yeah?  How many of each kind are there?

"Four."

Then how many packs of gum are in the box?

"Ten."

Really?  How do you get ten?

"Yeah, we've eaten two."

Adventures in Pedagogy: Syllogism and Detachment

On our way home Aidan (5) asks, "Dad does it hurt Jesus' hands when we drive?"

Wha?

"Does it hurt Jesus' hands when we drive?"

What do you mean?

"Our truck drives on tires."

Okay.

"And the tires have pokey things."  (read: tread)

Right.

"And the pokey things hurt the road."

Yeah, kind of, I guess.

"And Jesus' hands are under the road holding it."

Why do you say that?

Dawson (12) says, "Dad, I think he thinking of 'He's got the whole world...in His hands...'"

Is that what you mean, Aidan?

"Yeah.  So then, when we drive, it hurts Jesus' hands, right?"

Adventures in Pedagogy: Lessons From Limes

I'm cutting some limes in half then quartering the halves when Nevan (my 8 year old) walks up, watches for a moment and says:



8 slices per lime.
Oh yeah? I just cut 4 limes, so how many slices are there?

36.
36, huh? How'd you come up with that?

8 and 8 is 16 and 16 times two is...no wait, 34. There's 34 slices.
Alright, explain that one then.

*Begins using finger and countertop as if it's chalk and slate*
No, no, no. It's 32. 32 slices.
Why?

Well it has to be even.
*teachable moment antennae go up*
Oh? Why even?

16 plus 16 has to be even because an even plus an even is an even.
You sure?

Yeah. Even plus even is even and odd plus odd is even too. For example, 8 plus 8 is 16. Even. And 7 plus 7 is 14. Even.
So how do we get an odd?

We get those by adding an even plus an odd.
Nuh uh.

Yeah, lemme show you.
*And he does*

You know, this is just too easy. Math is all over the place around here. I'm a big fan of WCYDWT and all, but I've always struggled with running into a great problem that fits something I have to teach. But since we've decided to take over the education of our children, I don't care what fits. If it's interesting, we're talking about it.

The best part of this is that I don't even have to bring in pictures of hot dogs and buns in order to teach LCM. I can actually have that conversation with my son in the grocery store on July 3 because we really don't want to have food go to waste.

That's it! I'm homeschooling my students next year.

Adventures in Pedagogy: Conversations

My 11 year old was asked to describe what he could about the relationships between 1/a and 1/b if a < b (a, b are Natural numbers) and a/b and b/a.

He explained to me that 1/a > 1/b since it had a smaller denominator.

Why?

Well because if the denominator is larger, it's broken up into smaller pieces.

OK, so what about a/b and b/a?

a/b is a proper fraction and b/a is an improper fraction.

Then which one's bigger?

b/a.

Why?

*thinks for a moment*

Because b/a will have a whole number and a/b won't.

Then what can you tell me about all improper fractions?

*looks confused*

I get up and motion for Dawson to do the same.

If I'm 0 and you're 1, where would the proper fractions be?

*points between us*
Here.

Then where are the improper fractions?

*points away from me*
There.

Then what can you tell me about all improper fractions?

They're all bigger than 1.

Then what can you tell me about all proper...

They're all between 0 and 1.

There you go.

So do I have to do this problem?

Didn't you just do it?

Well yeah, but I didn't write it down.

Will writing it down help you understand it better?

Not really.

*Looking my son in the eyes*

*Smiles*
Cool.

Adventures in Pedagogy: Motivation

I'm not exactly sure what to make of it, but my children's motivation towards learning can be modeled by y = k/x where y = motivation and x = age. We've got Aidan (5)...

And Nevan (8)...




...who was dialed-in to this really simple applet I built for Dawson (11).




That's not to say Dawson has no motivation, but it's clear that he's been affected by the point- gathering-culture that is school.

Nevan spent a lot of time simply investigating integer addition and it isn't even on his radar right now as far as planned curriculum goes. He played with (+)+(+) and moved on his own to (-)+(-).

During lunch he asked, "Dad, can you teach me to add a positive plus a negative?"

Guess what my answer was. Go ahead, guess.

I built a couple of assessments in ExamView for them and Dawson was all jacked at his instant-feedback-Dad-I-got-em-all-right performance.

Now they're asking for assessments.

We're not paying them, either. With points or anything.

Adventures in Pedagogy: Experiments

Homeschooling has been interesting.  Suffice it to say, my kids have developed some bad habits very quickly. It's hard to admit that I've let my own children become answer chasers right under my nose.  I ask questions and we have a lot of conversations, but in a typical school day, my kids are gone from 8:00am-3:30pm and then have busywork waste-of-time-packet-work, er, homework to do.  By the time they were done, there wasn't really any desire to talk about the hoops they were jumping through stuff they were learning.

This morning was fantastic.  Nevan, my 8-year-old, was stoked that he had a science experiment to do.  He was looking through his text and saw the experiments and just lit up when my wife told him we were actually going to do them.

"Mom, my book at school had all kinds of experiments, but we never got to do them."

Wait, what?

Now, I'm no science teacher, but I couldn't agree more with Shawn's assessment of the situation.

I think the look on this kid's face speaks for itself.