What math teachers tell other math teachers
What math teachers tell other math teachers
What we (non-math teachers) can learn from math teacher recommendation
Helping your kid learn math after school and on weekends is tough if you’re not a math teacher
Your math kid wants to do more math, yet it’s hard to find all the resources available for your particular kid’s level, learning style, and how much time they have.
Then, when you do find some resources, you’re struck by the Paradox of Choice (the more options you have, the less satisfied you’ll feel about your decision), so you find yourself second-guessing what resources to use given your limited time, budget, and energy as well as your kid’s limited time and energy.
And that’s before you get into the actual work of sitting down and helping the kid learn from the math resource in a pleasant, helpful, and empowering way for both of you.
It would be so much easier if you were a math teacher, so you would already have all of this knowledge to help your kid succeed at what they love.
Imagine being able to guide your math kid as if you were a math teacher
You would be 100% confident in the resources you are using, how you approach teaching (for when it’s easy for the kid and when it’s not), and your expectations for each session and the overall big picture.
You’d have precise knowledge of how to teach a topic to really bring it to life for your kid and how to tie it into the big picture of the mat world.
Your time, money, and effort would be spent wisely and powerfully on increasing your child’s love of math.
Selfishly, you’d also be more motivated, sure, and enthusiastic to sit down with your math kid every day because you are battle-tested in the classroom and equipped to teach math regardless of what the day looks like.
The great news is that you don’t have to return to school to train to be a Math Teacher.
Listen in on Math Teachers as they talk to each other about what works and doesn’t work
There are many Math Teachers in the world, and they like to talk to each other to help each other out.
One great place to find this to see what issues they face and how they approach them is on Reddit’s /r/MathTeachers subreddit.
You can respectfully browse and see what problems they have had, what solutions they have tried, and what worked and didn’t.
And, with Reddit’s search engine, you can try to find if your particular issue, math subject, or behavioral sticking point has come up in the past and how Math teachers a) spoke about it and b) how Math teachers suggested thinking about it to solve it.
An Example of Exponents
Let’s say your kid is currently learning about exponents, and you want to catch potential issues early.
You can go on the /r/MathTeachers subreddit and see what’s been mentioned about exponents.
I’ve searched here for you (using the old version of Reddit and limiting it to the /r/MathTeachers sub-Reddit):
https://old.reddit.com/r/mathteachers/search?q=exponents&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all
I see the following:
The top result, “Properties of Exponents (without words),” leads us to:
Which is a YouTube video we can watch.
If we click into the video, we see that it’s from a not-very famous YouTube Math Account, and it only has 161 views as of Jan 2nd, 2023 (more than a year and a half ago (based on today’s date of Sep 13, 2024)).
I will not comment on the Video or the Video’s content for today’s purposes.
That said, If you look at HaldyBear’s profile, you can see that it reads: “I currently teach Algebra II and AP Pre Calculus, but do little of this and a little of that. All nerds welcome!”
Bingo! This is a video made by a Math Teacher who knows about exponents.
What’s more interesting to us for this discussion is going back to Reddit to see what (if anything) was commented on the video.
Beneath the video, a High School Teacher posts some thoughts and suggestions about the video and what they have found helpful to think about when teaching exponents.
Find something that resonates with you
My suggestion for using this great resource is two-fold:
Read the headlines for 3-5 minutes daily
Do deep dives as you approach new math subjects with your kid
Reading it daily gives you a sense of what’s happening in the subreddit and what topics come up over time.
Doing deep dives as you approach new math subjects will save you a lot of time, effort, and confusion because you get to see what Math Teachers recommend before tackling it with your kid.
Give the /r/MathTeachers subreddit a visit and see what you can find.
That’s all for today :) For more Kids Who Love Math treats, check out our archives.
Stay Mathy!
All the best,
Sebastian Gutierrez