Mathematical Fibs

Eight Post 06-08-05: Mathematical Fibs

My third grade teacher once told us a mathematical fib. She told us that you couldn’t divide a smaller number by a larger number. When I ask her why you couldn’t do it, she replied that "You just can’t divide a smaller number by a larger number." Of course this was a "mathematical fib." When you divide a smaller number by a larger number you just get a number less than one.

In a later grade I learned this. The third grade teacher just didn’t want to confuse us. But maybe there are other things in math class that children can understand better than we thought.

Things like adding left to right instead of right to left. Or learning about proportions when learning fractions. Kids learn the greatest common factor and least common multiple to help them with fractions. But what if at the same time they were introduced with basic number theories. Maybe teach a little basic geometry.

There is many things that kids would understand. And once they are challenged and given interesting math problems, they will excel in math.