Time Zones

Griffin is 13 years old and seems to be coming to the end of that early adolescent phase of rejecting everything those around him hold dear. Engaging him in math talk has taken more finesse in this phase of life.

Mostly it has involved giving him responsibility for things that involve making calculations. When he was little, we could talk collaboratively about how many tangerines are in a 3 pound bag and discuss whether this would be enough to last the family a week. Now I tend to put him in charge of getting enough tangerines to last us a week. He still has to do the same thinking, but he’s in charge.

This is not enough tangerines for a week at our house. (By the way, which is more?)

From time to time, though, we still put a mathematical idea up for discussion, and as he ages through adolescence, these conversations happen a bit more often. Yet he is still wary. Nevertheless, I persist.

We have been watching the Olympics, and we have wondered about which events are happening as we watch them, and which ones happened earlier (yet somehow happened “tomorrow”!)

Griffin was thinking about time zones, and about their implications for traveling as we wrapped up an evening this week, and made preparations for the next day.

Griffin (13 years old): So they’re 14 hours ahead of us?

Me: Yes.

G: You’d get a lot of jet lag, huh?

Me: Yeah. Maybe not as much as it looks like, though. Maybe it’s just 10 hours’ worth, going the other way.

There is a bit of a puzzled silence.

G: Wait. Really?

Me: Yeah. Well, plus a day.

G: Wait. Is this one of your mathy talks?

Me: Absolutely not.

If you’re reading this, Griff, I’m sorry (sort of). I am totally busted.

Me: Yeah. 14 hours ahead is the same as 10 hours behind, right? Just going the other way.

G: But the day would be wrong.

Me: Yeah. You have to add a day, but you don’t get jet lag because the day changes, you get jet lag because the time of day does.

G: Maybe.

He returns to packing his lunch. I go back to whatever I was doing. Putting turtles in boxes, probably.

A couple minutes later…

G: So the east coast is 23 hours behind us?

So What Do We Learn?

Keep trying. Opportunities to talk about numbers, shapes, and patterns present themselves. Seize them and do not stop. Ask questions, think out loud. Don’t worry about whether any particular conversation goes anywhere. Just keep at it.

Birthday Chocolate



Here’s how my after-work greeting went this evening.

Griffin (12 years old): Happy birthday, Dad.

Me: Thanks.





G: Oh brother.


G: You ate one-sixth of it.

Me: And it’ll last me 6 days.


So What Do We Learn?




Starting the Conversation




On helping children to love math

Some version of the following comes through my email Inbox every so often.

My daughter does not like maths. How can I ignite the passion for maths? She’s 8 and I feel she’s got to learn the importance of maths but how can I do it?  A teacher told her Maths is not for everyone and she believes it. Help!

Here is a version of my standard response.

Your story strikes close to my heart.

You may well know that girls are much more likely to get these kinds of messages from teachers than boys are, and they are much more likely to internalize these messages, as their teachers are much more likely to be same-gender role models.

It is all heartbreaking.

And I’ve seen these forces first-hand this year with my 9-year-old daughter. Her teacher said to her in a parent-teacher conference, “Your mind is better with words than with numbers, isn’t it?”

This, despite extensive evidence that she is a super creative mathematical thinker. A significant fraction of that evidence is documented on my blog, Talking Math with Your Kids.

With my own children, I have taken the perspective that “loving math” or even “appreciating its importance” may not be reasonable goals. Instead, being able to see math in their lives, and becoming competent mathematicians is.

Of course I would love for my children to love math, just as I would love for them to love reading. But I can’t enforce those emotions. What I can do is infuse my children’s everyday world with shapes, patterns, and numbers just as I infuse their world with words and stories.

This blog is full of concrete examples of opportunities for this. The post about hot chocolate is probably the simplest and clearest example of how parents can make simple changes to support their kids’ developing mathematical minds.

I would also recommend spending some time reading the research posts. There’s a lot of useful and interesting research work going on in math education right now, especially as it pertains to elementary-aged children, parents, and math.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if there is anything further I can do to support you and your daughter.

I wish you both the best!


[Readers write] Talking math with high schoolers

Reader Virginia wrote in via the About/Contact page recently, but must have had a typo in her email address. So I will reply to her question here. She wrote:

Intrigued by your blog and will purchase your ebook. Why not write about how to have math conversations with a high schooler? We could really use help in that arena. Many thanks.

My reply:

Thank you for reading, and thanks for writing.
I will be honest and say that the reason I haven’t written about high schoolers is that I don’t have regular access to them. Almost all of my examples come out of my experience at home, filtered through my professional knowledge. My little ones are now 7 and 10. I have been keeping track of these conversations since the older one was about 4, and in more earnest when the younger one was 4.
I will keep your request in mind and post to the blog when resources occur to me that may be helpful to you.
In the meantime, you may have fun with a website called Math Munch. There is lots of fun stuff to explore there, that would be appropriate for having conversations with high schoolers, even if that isn’t the explicit aim.
Best wishes and thanks again for writing!