Clearly I missed something in Primary School Maths.

Last night I went to an Early Childhood Education workshop on numeracy. Pre-maths.

Now, I’ve mentioned before that my math isn’t so great. I’ve always blamed it on my synesthesia and the colours of the numbers getting mixed up.  Last night, I discovered that just might not be the case. Clearly I missed an important understanding of math.

The facilitator (yes, she was facilitating, not presenting) had to get us to do a few math problems so that she could make her point about learning and numeracy and where the preschool children have to get to.

The first question was “Harry has 3 cows and Mary gives him 5 more. How many cows does he have?

Easy, right?  Question for you… do you have 3+5=8 memorised? (I do.) or did you do this:

5-1=4 and 3+1=4 and I know 4+4 =8.

While you ponder that, here’s the next question.  “George has 9 lollies and Candace gives him 8 more. How many lollies does George have?”

Again, a long time ago I memorised 9+8=17.  (Or, rather, yellow +blue = black and purple)

But my son (7) does this:

8+8=16 +1=17

Ready for the next one?

“If I have 47 apples and Dad gives me 25 more, how many apples do I have?”

That was the sound of my brain screaming. Dutifully, I did the longhand:

   47
+25
—–
   72

But the other educators in the room were of course, faster than me. 

40+20 = 60 + 12 = 72
47, 57, 67 +5 = 72
47 + 3 = 50 +25 = 75 -3 =72

By now, my brain was really hurting.

And then the facilitator threw the big one at us.

“I have 5 baskets filled with 28 muffins each. How many muffins do I have?”

[Kermit panic flail] and Broot runs out of the room screaming. After I’ve been settled down, again I do it this way:

 28
x 5
—–
140

Which of course, everyone in the room found quaint. (And slow!)

5×30 = 150 – (5×2=10) = 140

28/2=14 x (5×2=10) = 140

Apparently, while the primary teachers never used to teach this method, students who thought out of the box were doing their sums this way anyways. Some of us (ahem, me!) never got that concept and therefore are pretty slow at this math stuff, even though we can get the right answer eventually.

But now, primary school children are all taught this part/whole concept of math, which makes sense and is much easier than the longhand form.  They don’t get taught my outdated longhand until secondary school!

When the facilitator did a round of “Did you get what you needed out of this workshop?”  my answer was “I think I’ve just improved my math skills.”

My husband is very thankful, because I’m the one who pays the bills and does the budget. Ha.

Teaching the Teachers

I went to a workshop once where the person leading the workshop wanted us to think about presentation versus facilitation.

The way she put it was that a presentation assumes that most of the people in the room do not know as much as you do on your topic; therefore you are presenting them with mainly new information.

With facilitation, however, you assume that the people in the room know as much, or more, as you do about the topic. Your role becomes not to inform, but to facilitate a discussion that will find new ideas or new uses for the knowledge already in the room.

I witnessed this in action just this morning. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a facilitator for my workplace.  It’s my job to help parents learn more about their role as parents-as-first-teachers.  This morning I ran a music workshop.

It was a tough room. It was filled with teachers. Teachers. Mostly Primary School teachers. I’m not a capital “t” Teacher. No Teacher training whatsoever.  And in this setting, the Teachers usually think they know more than I do.

It’s true, to a certain extent. They definitely know more about teaching than I do. And more about primary school kids than I do. I definitely know nothing about getting 20-30 eight year olds to sit down and do worksheets.

But I know more about what they need to know to put their knowledge to work in an early childhood session. Which, contrary to their popular belief, is different from primary school.

So what did I do?  I facilitated.  I didn’t do much talking.  I asked questions. “Why do we use music in this setting? What do the children learn from music? What is the adult’s role when encouraging children to learn about music?”

I gave them no answers. They supplied them all. They knew the answers. They had just not applied them to this particular setting.

And they even took away the most important piece of information that they knew innately but hadn’t yet voiced, and the piece of information that I could have merely presented to little effect.

A child, by living, observing, experiencing, and actively exploring this world, is constantly learning, without any help from an adult. Sometimes an adult needs to be nearby to provide language, safety and equipment, but, more often than not, an adult can put their hands in their pockets and merely observe.

After that had soaked in, we talked about what they really wanted to know. “If we observe a child, notice, and recognise their interests and learning, what kind of music activities can we suggest that will scaffold and extend their learning?”

Again, I supplied no answers. They knew it all. They just needed someone to facilitate the discussion, and remind them of what they already knew.

Do you have examples of information that are better presented or facilitated?