I’ve taught hundreds of children 1st to 8th grade. And I wish they’d argue with me more. When I enthusiastically give them a tip that when they add 2 + 7, it’s easier to count up from the bigger number, or when I show them that 6 + 7 is the same as 6 doubled (which every young kid seems to know) , and one more, I wish they’d argue with me and say their method is different from mine and better.
But they don’t. Kids’ default is to please you. At least the kids’ ages that I work with. They don’t argue with you, even when what you say does not make sense to them. The end result, is that I leave with a smug, satisfied feeling I’ve taught these kids something as they nod their heads, but I have not!
I once taught a 1st grader about counting up from the bigger numbers. So to solve 2 + 7, you would count up from 7… 8, 9. She nodded and proceeded to do a page full of similar problems that way. So I thought. Between problems I would see her gaze up into the blue yonder. Taking breaks, I thought. Until I saw her nod her head in rhythm. After having a dialogue with her, I realized that this polite 1st grader had figured out I discourage counting with fingers so she switched to counting tallies in the sky and counting. She would make 7 nods as she sees 7 tallies in the blue yonder, then she would nod twice more to get 9.
Had the kid cared less about my feelings, and said, I like counting fingers no matter what she said, I would have been more aware of the situation and adjusted my approach.
This is why it’s challenging to teach math well in a school classroom setting of 20 kids. There’s even more peer pressure on the student to just take directions fro the teacher and not argue when it does not make sense, or she doesn’t follow the reasoning.
Develop a strong number sense early in your child – this will help your child articulate his thinking, and also follow the classroom instruction with greater understanding. She might still be too polite to argue, but with strong number sense, comes greater flexilbity in discerning different ways to solve problems
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