Several years ago I wrote a parenting manifesto which I still
follow. One of the goals was to be passionate about your interests and
your life. And to find other people who are passionate, as well. "Probably the most compelling and defining moments of your child's life," (I wrote)
"will involve exposure to people who are living a passion -- be it
teaching, fly-fishing, painting, or being a rock hound."
So let's talk about math.
I
was raised math challenged. When I was nine, after my mother's last
divorce, we moved to the California mountains, where we were surrounded
by seventies hippie types, animals, a lot of Pink Floyd, and huge
numbers of books. I'm sad to report that the joy of math passed
me by. My mother disliked it and so did I.
Now we live in the
silicon valley, where a good friend of mine told me several years ago
that she plays "math games in the car" with her child. I was utterly
flabbergasted. "You mean, like, fun?" I said. "Oh yes," she said.
"We have a lot of fun." Wow. This totally blew me away and I have to
admit that I spent quite a while trying to think of a
math-oriented game I could play in the car with my kid.
Didn't
work. "Gee honey, what's 2 plus 2?" lacked a certain ... resonance (on
both sides), and we soon dropped it. He had to settle for the same
mishmash
of science information, bizarre cultural and travel tidbits,
agnostic rantings, and mommy's non-Platonic monologues on
"what is good." Poor thing.
But I see him "doing" numbers sometimes and he seems to like them. I'd
love to hook him up with someone who loves numbers, who just
experiences sheer joy in them. Maybe it will rub off. Certainly it
would be nice to at least let him know that not everyone views numbers with a
baleful eye.
Enter our good friend Chongo. He was just over chatting with my
husband tonight, and showed me this web page. Check out the story
about Chongo at six at the bottom of the page. A good cautionary tale about schools and bright kids.
Chongo's page is called How High Can you Count? It makes sense that some children experience (apparently) a frisson of
power when they can count higher than other children. Yes! (She said,
brightly.) Sounds like Fun! Oh, I am in so much trouble. Do I have to be
supportive of MATH now? OK, excuse me. Sometimes when I blog, the
neuroses come out through the keyboard, although I assure you that they
are firmly subdued in real life.
So, if I can interrupt my inner voice and stop having the vapors for a minute, this stuff is
actually pretty cool. Chongo's pages are about playing with math. He discovered some Prime numbers
and has never lost his love for math. The thing that I like about his
website is that it's not some velvet-wrapped iron fist technique for
getting your kids to SCORE HIGHER. It's a genuine website from a
genuine person who just flat-out loves this stuff.
And check out this game that he's put together, called The English name
for a number. Figure out what number you want. Check some boxes. Do
you want it named using English or American convention? Power of 10?
Miscellaneous odd things that you can check? I put in this number:
789485726475950938484758596969585747383398390450550 and the little
applet told me that the name of the number is:
seven hundred eighty nine quindecillion,
four hundred eighty five quattuordecillion,
seven hundred twenty six tredecillion,
four hundred seventy five dodecillion,
nine hundred fifty undecillion,
nine hundred thirty eight decillion,
four hundred eighty four nonillion,
seven hundred fifty eight octillion,
five hundred ninety six septillion,
nine hundred sixty nine sextillion,
five hundred eighty five quintillion,
seven hundred forty seven quadrillion,
three hundred eighty three trillion,
three hundred ninety eight billion,
three hundred ninety million,
four hundred fifty thousand,
five hundred fifty
You know, I am a total non-math fan, and that was even a little fun for me. Then there's the cryptographically sound random number generator
and ... Oh Lord, I just don't get it. This is one of the reasons why
it's good to cook, so that when really brilliant people come over and
start talking with my husband about math and science and technology, I
can go make soup. And such a relief to be the intellectual slacker. I
embrace it over here at our house! Where IS my Agatha Christie book?
One last thing. At the end of the evening, Chongo took my kid out in the front yard to look at stars, and boy does he have a different perspective! (check out the Astronomy vita!) USUALLY my child gets stories of the constellations, which of course morph into stories from mythology and then, social commentary. When I went out though, Chongo was talking with him about ... Oh, I dunno. Some wierd space travel time continuum thing.
I realize that I've been waxing rhapsodic over some weird geek stuff
(yeah? Why ELSE live in the silicon valley for over 20 years), and I
apologize. Tomorrow I'll probably get irritated at the mall again, but
for today, I just want to say "hooray for passions!" And thank
goodness my child won't have to grow up thinking of numbers without joy.
This first appeared on the Silicon Valley Mom's blog
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