S l o w D o w n, Raise the Bar™
Slow down, raise the bar. I am fascinated by the relationships between education, sustainability and art. The more I think about it, the more I read about it - the link always points to slowing down in order to enjoy, to expand.
Too many students are too stressed out about school and learning, wasting too much precious time. 2020/21 was a tough school year and required a lot of energy from everyone. Why not slow down to examine HOW we can apply mindfulness and detailed, focused practise to increase a love of learning and decrease stress.
What students learn in one grade, becomes a tool to solve questions in the next as well as other subjects. My experience is helping students understand not only math, but science using math while weaving in techniques borrowed from mindfulness to decrease that wall of panic too often encountered.
As opposed to the devil being in the details, perhaps it is the solution. Repetition, like a drumbeat brings order and comfort and yet it has been portrayed as a boring evil. Rather it builds a foundation. So much mindsight, meditation work which has taken fire this past decade makes use of repetition and space. Allow me to digress and share my dancing story. I always wanted to Ukrainian dance. All my life I felt it was out of my league. Through an accident which resulted in my not walking for nearly a year, ironically I got my chance. I had to slow down when I fell on a flat sidewalk, on an icy transition and ended-up with a metal plate and screws holding my left leg tibia. I remember the moment I promised myself WHEN I healed I would dance. The ONLY thing that had been holding me back was fear, shyness and limiting beliefs about my capability. Life obliged and through a few serendipitous events I ended up working in Calgary, Alberta for a co-operative education work-term . These were my engineering days and Calgary has a very large Ukrainian Canadian population and dancing is wildly popular. Just look up Shumka, often referred to as a Canadian National Treasure. After finishing my degree, I moved “out west” and joined the Tryzub ensemble. We practiced each Friday for 3 hours, and coming into a show added-in another 8 hours on Sat, and Sun every 2nd or 3rd weekend. It gave me an opportunity to “catch-up” as I was starting at age 24 vs. 4. After a year, I had enough skill to dance a Hopak closing the Calgary stampede show. I was not going to be a soloist, but I was thrilled with the progress I had made. It was possible due to the Artistic Director. We started practice with an hour of ballet prior to an hour of “ukie aerobics” prior to starting the dances. I will never forget the sun pouring into the windows of the beautiful Nat Christie centre of the Alberta Ballet where we practiced and George each week repeating crystal clear detailed instructions on how to do a basic tendue. This was a group which commanded $1 000 for one 12 minute show and yet he was explaining the most basic dance step each week. It was only through this painstaking repetition, slow practice and detail that the foundations for a beautifully precise result were set. One night in the pouring rain, at the closing performance of the Grandstand Show, water splashing in our faces as the guys landed their split-kick jumps we finished to a standing ovation of around 15 000 people. As we danced he would bellow “fire” as a hopak is an energetic flow of spins and jumps. During practice the music would stop and he would carefully check the angle of everyone’s arms and heads, ensuring maximum precision. All groups dance a hopak. Only a select few make it magical.
Little did I realize how much I learned those days. Repetition, detail. Repetition, detail. Slow down to move fast, slow down to raise the bar. Slow down to appreciate the elegance in the simplicity, slow down to understand the movement, the patterns. No wonder I was fascinated by Carl Honore’s books In Praise of Slow and Under Pressure, Putting the Child Back in Childhood. No wonder I was fascinated by Michael Pollen’s Omnivore’s Dilemma where the intricate web of ecosystems and sustainable cycles are explained in detail.
And so back to education. Slow down. Learn the basics - mental math. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. These are the tendues of the language of Mathematics. Mathematics is the language of Science, Economics, life. Skip the shortcuts “put it on the other side, cross-multiply” - UNDERSTAND what an “=” sign means. It is a tool. It allows the solution of problems by relying on the simple concept of performing the SAME operation on both sides. Always. It grounds and is a path forward. It sets the stage for unravelling the mysteries of science. But ONLY if you use precise language. Minus is an operation. Negative refers to what side of the zero you are on in a number line.
Let’s look at some examples:
Example 1:
2 - 4 = - 2
What is it, looking at it precisely ?
LOCATE + 2 Whew, that is easy … the + tells you it is 2 steps RIGHT of 0
MOVE how far ? 4 steps LEFT [you changed the point by 4 steps]
WHERE ARE YOU? 2 steps LEFT of the zero which is represented by -2
How would you translate this operation into English? 2 minus 4
You wouldn’t say: 2 negative 4
Rather, the POINT where you finished is referred to as NEGATIVE 2
Stay with me, it will become important to understand the next operation which can be tricky for some if they don’t build the foundations using proper language and symbols.
Example 2:
2 - ( - 4 ) = scary ?????
This would be translated as: two minus negative 4
Let’s not skip any symbols, even the seemingly obvious ones. (remember the tendue)
The question then looks like ( + 2 ) - ( - 4 )
well, let’s slow down and take it step-by-step…
this time it is a DIFFERENCE between 2 points
LOCATE + 2 same as before … the [ + ] tells you it is 2 steps RIGHT of 0
LOCATE - 4 the [ - ] tells you it is 4 steps LEFT of 0
3a. How many STEPS between the points ? 6
b. Start where? START from the - 4 and END at the + 2
c. WHY? Someone decided.
No different than deciding that we stop at a red, go at a green.
The good news is that this format will is applied to ALL subjects: motion, electricity, heat
The short-cut ? Two negatives become a positive.
2 - ( -4) = 2 + 4
This common short-cut strategy of 2 negatives becoming positive may get the right answer in grade 7, however as soon as you hit a science motion question 2 years later, you are back to square one and now the tempo accelerates (pardon the pun). it does not do much for the learning to become a TOOL for understanding a CHANGE. Don’t get me started on the glazed eyes and panic during the Electricity unit (yup, 2 years later) with series and parallel circuits, voltage, potential difference … which all fall apart easily if this subtraction is truly understood. (Are you remembering a panic yet?)
The brain then has a chance to consistently build a circuit picturing a number line and c’est claire that the DIFFERENCE between the 2 is 6 steps.
The good news is, if we switch the example to a simple temperature question, you already KNOW this!
Here is a direct application -
This morning in Paris we are staring at a chilly minus 4 and by this afternoon it will at least be over freezing, a high of plus 2. It is clear it gets warmer by 6 degrees.
Congratulations, you CAN do integer subtraction and by default, introductory physics.
I cringe when I hear students, adults often saying “eew, physics” is too difficult. If the foundations are not there, then why wouldn’t it seem an impossible challenge ? If the mental math is not there to be able to make an estimate of the answer, to check the reasonableness of a solution … why wouldn’t it feel a frustrating, impossible feat. And the training for that starts in early education with precision, language and repetition. I have yet to see a student who truly “hates math or physics” once they take the time and care to see the patterns.
After all, we all love a heartbeat, we all love a drum beat. It is soothing, it is predictable and it is sustainable. So is education. So are the tools. Let’s use them wisely and give them the time and space they need in order to leap forward. Back to dancing, it was through those careful tendues that my dream of dancing on-stage accelerated.
Slow Down, Raise the Bar ™