Better Late Than Never!

It still amazes me that all children, regardless of sex, gender or economic, all develop in the exact same order. It used to blow my mind thinking that no matter what environment children were raised in, their minds followed the same processes to get to an end. The only difference was the rate and extent of their development that made the difference in their mental capabilities. This is interesting because as it turns out, math allows us to use this phenomenon to better educate our students. By knowing that all students follow the same pattern of thought when it comes to math makes it easier to decipher where students are getting confused as well as whether or not they are truly understanding concepts. I like that all students start with a certain strategy and just because one student uses a different strategy, that does not make them any more or less intelligent, it just means that they are at a different stage of thinking. Math now seems a little bit more conquerable (as well as teachable).