Attention Spans for Math and Stories (2019)

I have found something similar to be true when it comes to building.<p>Some years ago, John Collison tweeted that he realized everything he saw in the built environment had once been someone’s passion project.<p>I think there’s another, maybe more interesting way to say it, which is that everything built embodies a story both in how its internal parts relate to each other, and how those parts relate to the rest of the world, say, the humans who use a building.<p>I realized this watching my 6yo, who loves stories, place each new Lego brick into a building or vehicle and explain what it contributed, and how it would be useful. The bricks were stuck together with explanations.<p>Talking about this later with a friend who does design, he made me see that this is what design is. And that the stories change after the object is built, as the humans bring new needs and expectations to objects. Everything is its own Gestalt and the Gestalt is dynamic over time.

&gt; What’s really needed is more story-focused content between basic number sense and undergraduate level math. YouTube channels like Numberphile (particularly Tadashi Tokieda’s episodes that explore curious toys) are a fantastic invitation. More could exist in various forms, particularly those that transition from these delightful introductions to deeper, more complete theories while still holding on to the stories. The closest I’ve found for young children is the comic book series Beast Academy.

Two other stories by Raymond Smullyan:<p>- In &quot;What Is the Name of This Book?&quot; he recalls being introduced to logic at the age of six.<p>- In &quot;The Lady or the Tiger?&quot; (if I remember correctly), a friend asks Raymond not to tell his child that the puzzles he&#x27;s enjoying are actually math because he hates math!

Story telling is hard but one trick which has been really helpful to me is telling the history behind the actual invention of a mathematical concept, what was the problem, who solved it and how aids in understanding and memory than just bombard young minds with equations and tables.

Anyone familiar with Murderous Maths?

Were was this person when I was a child?<p>Okay. I wasn’t a scout. But a good approach through storytelling!

The existence of this article is explained by simple fact of nature: regression to the mean applies, on average, to heritability of various quantitative human traits, such as general intelligence and mathematical aptitude (and to more specific parameters such as working memory and attention span).<p>Talented mathematicians are visibly disappointed when their child turns out more re average than them and try to compensate via clever early education schemes that are unlikely to work out given what we know about heritability of these traits.