I want you to imagine a world without math.  What would that look like?  Think about that for a moment.  No math.

How would you know what time it was?  How would you know how much money you had?  How would you bake a cake?  How would you build a tree house?

We learn math because it’s useful.  It makes our lives easier.  And it helps us understand the world we live in.  Math is critical to the success of…well, just about everything.

But I’ve been reading too many articles recently where ‘math’ has been deliberately removed from discussion…an after school m— club that wouldn’t use the word m— in it’s title because they thought kids wouldn’t want to join.  A, gulp, Family Math Night event where the goal was to make it as “fun as possible so the kids don’t know it’s math”.

Why do we insist on removing the ‘m’ word?  I actually think we need to find opportunities to connect the fun that our students are having with the math they are doing.

Yay, we get to use our multiplication facts and understanding of area and perimeter to help design and build a scale model town in Math Club today!

Yay, I can use my number facts and knowledge of probability to help me win this game during Family Math Night!

If we embrace the math instead of running from it we have a much better chance of developing students who see the value in learning math.  And when they see the value in math, they’re more willing to put in the effort that is often required when learning something new.

So let’s make an effort to embrace the ‘m’ word every chance we get…

I love how math helped me figure out how many bags of candy I need for our Halloween party!

…and pretty soon we’ll notice our students doing the same!