How Math Works

Book excerpt: We hear all the time how American children are falling behind their global peers in various basic subjects, but particularly in math. Is it our fear of math that constrains us? Or our inability to understand math’s place in relation to our everyday lives? How can we help our children better understand the basics of arithmetic if we’re not really sure we understand them ourselves? Here, G. Arnell Williams helps parents and teachers explore the world of math that their elementary school children are learning. Taking readers on a tour of the history of arithmetic, and its growth into the subject we know it to be today, Williams explores the beauty and relevance of mathematics by focusing on the great conceptual depth and genius already inherent in the elementary mathematics familiar to us all, and by connecting it to other well-known areas such as language and the conceptual aspects of everyday life. The result is a book that will help you to better explain mathematics to your children. For those already well versed in these areas, the book offers a tour of the great conceptual and historical facts and assumptions that most simply take for granted. If you are someone who has always struggled with mathematics either because you couldn’t do it or because you never really understood why the rules are the way they are, if you were irritated with the way it was taught to you with the emphasis being only on learning the rules and “recipes” by rote as opposed to obtaining a good conceptual understanding, then How Math Works is for you!