I'm not really a... "math person." I was never one of those folks who just loooved math, who saw the magical way the numbers would have to fall. The logic wasn't clear for me. I could do it, I always did fine, but it wasn't intuitive or enjoyable. At all.
Last Saturday, we had a wonderful, wonderful class with a middle school math teacher. She was enthusiastic, fun, and extremely energetic. She likes math, but she loves students, and that really made me think about this whole "teaching math" thing differently.
By which I mean, it made me think about teaching math at all.
I think the real turning point came when she encouraged (ahem, *required* us) to come up with songs or chants to remember information about rates, ratio, and proportion. Extra points (life points, not class points) if we could come up with a "total physical response" to help kids remember the terms or ideas.
Oh yeah. This is my kinda thing.
I turned to my group with great excitement. Together, we came up with the following work of staggering genius.
Feel free to sing it out loud, in public, on the daily. That's what I've been doing. Just make sure you're singing it to the tune of "Winter Wonderland."
Rates, ratio, and proportion
All compare the values "a" and "b"
If "a" gets multiplied by a number
Then "b" gets multiplied equally
To simplify, use division
For equivalents, use multiplication
And then you will see
What "a" is to "b"
Looking at numbers comparatively
You may now applaud.
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