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Homeschool Australia
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Mathematics
It's Okay To Make Mistakes Doing Maths © Beverley Paine Mistakes in maths seem to take on more importance than any other subject and consequently 'failing to get it right' is a much bigger deal. It is hard to relate to mathematical errors as approximations, which is what we do with other areas of learning. Spelling and maths are two areas that parents and educators tend to get paranoid about, worrying that if they are not learned at a certain age in a certain way then all is lost. Instead of fretting over our children's endless fumbling with maths and focusing on the mistakes, we need to use the mistakes as a brilliant way to unlock what learning is occuring and how. By examing and analysing our children's mistakes we will learn what basic concepts and understanding is missing or needs more work. Treating mistakes as a natural and important part of the learning process and accepting that they will happen and that making them is not 'failing' is an attitudinal shift that can really boost a young learner's confidence. With my own children I sometimes used a story-telling approach to find out how the child had worked the problem in his head, and how they had arrived at that answer. Often they didn't really know. It seemed to me that in many cases my children had 'guessed' the answers to the problems on the page, which resulted in more right answers than wrong. Because most of the answers were right, when they got a wrong answer they weren't able to identify straight away why they got the sum wrong. Talking through the process helped them to see how their minds were working to solve problems. As they grew older they were still able to accurately 'guess' an answer to many mathematical problems and this led them to explore how the processes they'd used to arrive at the answer - right or wrong - after getting the answer! I saw this as them beginning to acknowledge and trust their innate mathematical abilities - in much the same way they did as very young children. Back then they never questioned their ability, they just got on with working things out, having a go, making adjustments, with the focus on the game, or activity, rather than the mathematics. Maths was like breathing and eating and learning to talk and walk - something you did in order to achieve something else. It took me a long time to appreciate the natural learning happening in this area of their lives!
After 20 years of being a contact and support person Beverley no longer takes phone call or email inquiries. Please join one of her yahoo groups if you want to know more about homeschooling or have a question.
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Pioneering members of the home education movement in Australia, Beverley and Robin Paine are passionate advocates of true educational choice for families. They began homeschooling their children in 1986 and three years later started the South Australian Home Based Learners network.Beverley wrote Getting Started with Homeschooling in 1995-97 and since then continues to write books and booklets on home education. She balances spending time helping home educators with working in her garden and renovating her home, as well as continuing to build her collection of writing on a variety of homeschooling subjects. Beverley maintains an extensive collection of websites as well as several Yahoo groups supporting families teaching their children at home. In 2007 Beverley joined the HEA and became a committee member in 2008: she also edits and produce the HEA Newsletter, HEA magazine, Stepping Stones for Home Educators, annual Resource Directory and other HEA publications. If you'd like to keep in touch with what Beverley is up to her in her life, sign up for the Homeschool Australia Newsletter or visit her Facebook page.