The new academic year approaches in August – the adventure that is summer and the rest that comes from long, slow days in the sun yield to days that start shaving off the sun set minute by minute in preparation for fall.
Ah, but those summer adventures! As a child growing up in rural Northwest Ohio, I spent my summer days playing around the farm – checking in on my duck, walking my pony, helping in the garden (my mother paid me a penny for each tomato worm I took off the vine and squashed), and completing 4-H projects. My brothers and I explored the woods behind the fields, building forts and make believing. And I read a lot – going to far off places with my favorite and not so favorite characters.
Life is full of expeditions – children, young adults, and even me as I am neither of those any longer, have places and ideas to explore – much to learn.
Classical education thrives in exploration – a posture of willingness to be adventurous and discover what is and be changed by it. Afterall, it is during the journey that we really learn to love that which is worthy of genuine affection.
One such adventure that all classical scholars at Columbus Classical Academy go on is the math adventure. So often children are pegged as either math people or not math people – generally because a parent sees themselves that way and passes on the typology to their progeny (At one time I was guilty of this – that is until I discovered classical education many years ago). And math can be tricky – it may not end up being a favorite or a career, but math is foundational to understanding the world around us, the order of our universe; it is beautiful in its own right. It is worth loving.
Francis Su, in his book Mathematics for Human Flourishing says that all people (young, old, rich, poor, male, and female) can be explorers and that he is a “mathematical explorer” and that we can see ourselves as one, too (12, 19). Su writes that “a society without mathematical affection is like a city without concerts, parks, or museums. To miss out on mathematics is to live without an opportunity to play with beautiful ideas and see the world in a new light” and “to grasp mathematical beauty is a unique and sublime experience that everyone should demand” (8). He goes on to encourage parents, and the same can be said for teachers, to remember our “disposition toward math matters as much for a child’s sake as four [our] own” (9).
Su asserts that “exploration cultivates an expectation of enchantment” (29). At CCA we would call this wonder – scholars get to engage in truth finding – beauty finding – and good finding and when they have found it, they learn. Further, Su maintains that “math explorers are not satisfied with shallow knowledge” rather “deep investigation of truth” requires habituation so that the explorer can know “multiple ways of knowing the truth, not just to check their work” (106). As with any journey, there will be struggle. Su refers to mathematical struggle as “productive struggle” which indicates “actively wrestling with a problem, persistently trying out various strategies, being willing to take risks, being unafraid of mistakes, and progressing incrementally in understanding underlying ideas” (120). It may not be that our children are not math people – it just may mean that they need to struggle a bit – explore a lot – turn, churn, chew, and look at math from many angles, vantage points – it may mean the right answer isn’t the most important part of the math problem.
I am excited to say that Francis Su will be the keynote speaker at our Second Annual Opening Ceremony in mid-August; his book Mathematics for Human Flourishing is worth your time. And as the summer explorations end, I look forward to having all our math explorers back on campus.
