bravo - and spot on to Seymour and Alan..
in my ignorance, flavored with kids' insight and experiences... and my love for mathematics.. i think aloud - boldly...
is not mathland life?
is that not why we deem PISA so heavily.. our instincts tell us how mathematics is a universal language
(as i believe all languages are becoming moreso - kids craving more foreign language acquisition as they are becoming more global whether they travel physically or not, ie: frenchland is dispersing as well)
- yet
our busyness and drive to compete and improve and measure, keeps us from the essence of that universality. we are indeed measuring success per math not per mathematics, not per mathematical thinking. that is such a huge difference. success is defined, and hence, progress is achieved or more often not achieved, on completely different levels.
in my perception, that is why change hasn't happened since dewey and emmerson and all the other greats have written about self-directed, learner-owned learning. we are mentally, emotionally, ... blinded to that difference. it's as if it's so huge and so small all at once. because the words we choose to talk about a PISA-type success resonate with that instinct toward mathematically thinking, (and yet are indeed math), we succumb to the allure.
and because, so it seems, that will never get us to self-directed ownership, we continue in this perpetual frinzy of searching for the golden key.. the bullet answer.
when the answer is.. the answers are everywhere. the answers are in everyone. the answer is there is no one answer. nothing is for everyone. most answers today swim in inaccuracy.
if we're wanting to sustain in life, to thrive in life, the answers, or more accurately, the questions, have got to be found in a person.
Papert again - find the curriculum in each child.
so yeah - creating a mathland is certainly helping some.. but i'm wondering.. what if we used less of our resources to create a mathland, and freed up more of our valuable resources, the minds of youth, everywhere, to notice more.
trusting that learning and mathematical thinking and french are so huge that they will show up, is the first step in the change we seek.
trust that, if they are vital to us, meaningful to us, they will show up.
trust that.
notice that.
notice them.
notice the unlikely.
let's take a deep breath and start providing more free spaces for people to notice more.
we will be blown away by the results..
if ...
we can endure the very likely bouts of perceived waste/laziness/chaos as we detoxify old patterns of thinking/doing/being.
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