Tag: Education

The Power of Math

A few days ago was March 14, celebrated as “Pi Day”, because the number pi begins 3.14. It got me to thinking about how many time I’ve heard this about math and I know I’m not in a minority here: “I hate math”, “Why am I learning this?”, “I don’t see the point”,“I’ll never use it”. It’s sad and unfortunate that some people have no appreciation for the subject that is the backbone of everything! Some may love science, but if they don’t like math they will only go so far, because the language of science is mathematics. Both can be fascinating and fun, if taught in the right way.

There’s nothing to compare to performing a science experiment and seeing the ideas you learned come to life in action. Math can be just as fascinating. You do not have to be a mathematician or know fancy formulas to appreciate it’s power to answer simple everyday questions. The problem is, most don’t use it.

Many Black people, in particular, seem to have an absolute aversion to anything numerical. I believe this stems from how the subject is first presented to us. In general, mathematics is presented in a way that is disconnected from anything relevant. It is harder for a child to relate to and understand something that is abstract and not connected with day to day experiences. Word problems are supposed to make that connection, but even those aren’t relevant. This causes the majority of our children’s interest to drift away from math and science, the building blocks of every discipline. We need to nurture an interest for math and science in our children. How can we do this?

First, make sure you, the parent, have a solid grasp of the fundamentals of arithmetic—addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals—so you can help your child master these fundamentals. Then, make an effort to make mathematics a part of your child’s life early on. Encourage basic counting, and as they get more knowledge, encourage finding patterns. Numbers and patterns are everywhere. Getting your child to find these numbers and patterns and using their skills in every day situations will give your child number sense and make math more relevant to them. Practice is essential but doesn’t have to always come from homework.

Here are more general ideas. You can tailor the activity according the child’s skill level.

*Find math games to play with your child. This will give them practice and have fun at the same time. I have a couple listed below. Maybe you can make up your own. Possibilities are endless.

*When walking down the street, count the number of houses or cars. Maybe notice if there are more cars than mini-vans or more apartment buildings than houses. How would you express this with the symbols < or >?

*If store items are stacked, challenge the child to use multiplication to count them.

*If watching passing cars, a game might be to find the number of cars that pass in 15 seconds, then approximate how many would pass in a minute. Count the number of cars passed in a minute to see how close the approximation was.

*If they have learned measurement, have them try to approximate the measure of different items—pencil, a lamp, a car, a tree, the height of a house. Once they are familiar with the measurement of one thing, encourage them to use that to approximate the measurement of something else.

*Notice the shapes and geometric figures of every day objects—canned goods, houses, tables, plates, curtains, blankets, windows, etc.– and notice how the parts connect to make the overall shape. If they know the formulas for area, or volume, maybe ask what formula would they use to find the area of the plate (circle) or square shaped part of the house or the volume of the can or the area of a rectangular shaped window or the triangular shaped part of the roof.

*Have the child to notice floor tiling. Some of these have fascinating patterns. Even to this day, I find myself looking at tiles on the floor and using multiplication to figure out the number of tiles in specific section or to find a pattern in the tiles.

*If a child expresses an interest in a particular topic that hasn’t been covered in school, do not discourage them or make them wait until the school starts teaching on it. Encourage them to seek information on their own, with appropriate supervision. Share what you may know on that topic. They may be mature enough to understand. Don’t let a school curriculum hold them back from independent exploration into math!

Don’t make it a chore. If they resist, don’t insist. It should be welcoming and interesting and fun.

Here are a few games I enjoyed growing up and still enjoy playing. They are inexpensive, don’t require any electronics and can be played anywhere. They can probably be found with a Google search if you want to do your own research.

1. Krypto, a math card game. One card is the target number, 5 other cards with a number on each are dealt to players. The goal is to use the 5 number cards and mathematical operations to make the target number.

2. Math Dice. This game is similar to Krypto, except dice are used instead of cards.

3. Qwixx. You use the numbers on dice to cross off numbers on a score card. It sounds simple, but requires more strategy than you might think.

4. Here is a paper version of a phone app I found called Number Twist. List 4 random numbers between 1 and 9, and they can be repeated. Use some or all of the numbers and mathematical operations to produce the numbers 1 thru 10. For example, if given the numbers 4, 5, 3, 4

5-4=1 or 4/4=1

5-3=2

(4+5)/3=3

So far, I have used the numbers and math operations to make the numbers 1, 2 and 3.

These games can also be used to strengthen skills and give your child more confidence with numbers. You can always make your own modified versions of these games. I have made modified forms of the games by changing the allowed numbers, throwing in other operations such as powers and roots or adding a timer to spice things up a bit. There are so many possibilities.

Again, the point is to give the child number sense, confidence in working with numbers and an appreciation for how math can be used to answer questions in everyday situations.

We need to change this trajectory. It is no wonder that the most oppressed people in the world (we really are!) spend most of our time and money on sports, gambling, partying, and entertainment instead of empowering our minds with the tools that rulers use to build civilizations.

Thank you for reading!

Happy Pi Day!

A few fascinating ideas about Pi (according to mathematicians)

Pi is a mathematical number, popularly approximated using 3.14 and symbolized with the Greek letter 𝝿, pronounced pi. March 14 or 03/14 is called Pi day.

First, a bit of history. White historians may lead you to believe that Pi was discovered by white people, which is not true. The Original peoples of the earth, who are not white, had advanced civilizations, advanced knowledge of math and science, long before the white man did. Everywhere he went, he found signs of this. You cannot build an advanced civilization without knowing something as basic as the value or Pi or what it represents. White people got their knowledge of math and science from their travels to Asia and Africa, not the other way around. So, no, Pi was not discovered by white people. They may or may not have known the approximation to the trillionth digit, but that isn’t something you need for accurate scientific calculations and advanced civilizations. According to Livescience.com, NASA only uses the first 16 digits for most of their calculations.

https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/mathematics/pi-day-2024-why-nasa-uses-only-16-of-the-62-trillion-digits-of-pi-we-know

What is Pi, exactly?

Pi, by the way, is the circumference of any circle divided by it’s diameter. It’s not hard to prove this.

A Super Simple Way to Calculate Pi

Take any circle, say the bottom of a jar or the top to a jar. Find the circumference by measuring around the jar or top with a measuring tape. Then, measure the diameter on the bottom of the jar or across the top to the jar, a line straight thru the center of the circle, from one end to the other. Divide the circumference by the diameter. For example, if your circumference is 22 and your diameter is 7, you would put the following into the calculator: 22÷7. If your answer isn’t 3.14, it’s because your measurements weren’t accurate enough. But, it should be close. A bigger circle will probably get a more accurate answer.

How Many Digits Are There?

Speaking of the trillionth digit of pi, just how many digits are there? Well, Pi is a kind of special number, in a special category known as irrational. Irrational numbers have these properties—they have a decimal value that never ends, never falls into a repeating decimal pattern and you cannot express them using a fraction. You can approximate them using a fraction, as in the common approximation for Pi, 22/7. But this does not equal pi, because there is NO known finite decimal number that equals pi. The best anyone can give at this time is only an approximation, no matter how many digits they find. This is why someone can calculate pi to the trillionth digit to the to the right of the decimal point and someone else come along and say, I found a longer approximation!

Another fascination idea about pi: because it has an infinite number of digits, with no repeating pattern, some where in that never ending stream of digits you can probably find almost any number you can think of. Your birthday, month, day and year? It probably occurs as a string of digits somewhere in Pi.

Here is a website to try this out on your own!

https://www.angio.net/pi/

Other Places to Find Pi

People think of Pi only when talking about circles. Well, circles are everywhere! There are circles in bottles, cans, balls, ice cream cones, the sun, pipes, and a stream of water coming out of a circular faucet. Everyone one of these contains a circle and uses pi in some way to describe it.

Well, that’s all for now. Hope you found this interesting and maybe learned a little something too! Thanks for reading.

If he won’t treat you right, what makes you think he’ll teach you right?

“We want equal education–but separate schools up to 16 for boys and 18 for girls on the conditions that the girls be sent to women’s colleges and universities. We want all black children educated, taught and trained by their own teacher.

Under such school system we believe we will make a better nation of people. The United States government should provide free all necessary text books and equipment, schools and college buildings. The Muslim teachers shall be left free to teach and train their people in the way of righteousness, decency and self respect.”—The Muslim Program, “What the Muslims Want” No.9, by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad

The following is what results from Black people that have white education.

It started with slavery and this has set the tone for the whole time we have been here. It’s been one form of slavery after the other, keeping us under their control so we will not be a people that strive to help ourselves but look to white people for everything. Our generations of children since being churned out by the white education system are nothing but tools to keep the engine of their society running smoothly for the benefit of white people.

We think we can make a difference if they give us jobs. We take the money and put it back into their economy, to help them stay rich and in power. We don’t make our own jobs, our own businesses. We don’t use our resources to build up our neighborhoods, our schools, no. We give it back to white America as if we think after all this time, they will magically start doing that for us.

We seek and think we can make a difference from political offices, even a presidency. Obama did nothing to help Black people in America—unless they were homosexual. The one time I know that he did try to speak up for another Black man, Henry Louis Gates Jr., they (white people in power) put him in his place real quick, making him apologize, not just to the police department but had to make amends specifically to the officer who wrongly targeted Mr. Gates. I don’t remember one news story where anyone apologized to Mr. Gates. Maybe it happened, but the real news was, Obama apologized to the white cop. This the great Black presidency.

“If you think because Kennedy said in 40 years a Negro man would become president of the country, he will become just that, then you misunderstood. Never will a black man be able to rule a white man in America. He was only referring to the so-called Negroes’ unity with his brothers. This will make him strong enough to put a President in the office, but not over white people.”—The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Message To The Blackman

Obama couldn’t even criticize a white police officer without being put back in his place. What makes you think he had any power to rule over white people in America???? What makes you think he or any Black politician has any power over white America to make a change for the better for Black America? White education, that’s what.

So, our children are taught that Obama was such a great man for Black people in America, the Black president that had to apologize to a white cop for speaking up against unjustly targeting a Black man. I’d like to know, how is this any different from any other Black man that speaks up against police injustice????

The white man’s schools are like a machine that turns Black children into little Black tools which then grow into adult Black tools. They will have no love for each other, no desire to build strong Black families with a mother and father to nurture the children, the basic building block of any society. No desire to unite with their own people and use what they have to help each other. No desire to use what they have to build up our neighborhoods, build up Black businesses. No desire to do for self. All you have to do is look, and weep, at our children today to see the truth of these words. Drug addiction, homelessness, jail, gay/lesbianism, music that degrades Black women, glorifies murdering each other, glorifies selling drugs; Black women and now young girls twerking, men that don’t take care of their children, single parent households—this is what describes many of our youth, this is what keeps the white man in power, keeps Black people with no power, and this comes from allowing the white man to educate them. This is the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. It starts with our children, our future. If we want to break free from depending on a people who have made it clear they have no love for us, taking charge of the education of our children is vital, from the cradle up.

Thank you for reading these words!