User:Sue VanHattum
My background is in math. I teach at a community college. I've been involved with math circles, and helping homeschoolers with math. I saw that there was no entry on 'Living Math', and decided it was time to set up an account with Wikipedia, so I could add to the knowledge base.
I speak English as my first language, Portuguese somewhat fluently, and Spanish passably.
Draft for Living Math page:
Living Math
Living math refers to teaching math through its connections to "what is living, breathing and relevant to the child"[footnote to: http://www.livingmath.net/Articles/LivingMathBegins/tabid/310/language/en-US/Default.aspx, as of 7/3/11] - stories, history, art, science, programming, cooking, construction. Connections to story or other loved subjects provide a rich context which helps students enter into the mathematical material. The phrase 'living math' was first coined by Julie Brennan, a homeschooling parent, as a term related to 'living ___'. [In footnote: Julie Brennan now moderates the Yahoo email group [link or footnote?], Living Math Forum. She also maintains a website, livingmath.net, which offers a wide variety of living math resources.] Homeschoolers around the globe are discovering that connecting mathematics to their children's other interests makes it much easier to teach and learn. [Are any schools using this idea? Waldorf embeds math in story, but doesn't call it living math.]
Math Through Stories A few good examples of living math books which embed the math in stories are:
- How To Count Like a Martian, by Glory St John, which introduces the reader to historical counting systems, and then offers the puzzle of a fictive martian counting system,
- The Cat in Numberland, by Ivar Ekeland, which explores the Hotel Infinity metaphor for the countable infinity,
- The Number Devil, by Hans Enzenberger, in which xx meets the Number Devil in his dreams, and explores a variety of math topics, and
- The Man Who Counted, by Malba Tahan, in which ....
Math Through History