“I am not a math person”

One of the many myths we face as teachers of math is the existence of a ‘math person’!  In truth, there is no math person or language person, no concept of creative types not being scientific in their thinking. We don’t have the luxury of eschewing any kind of skill in general and then, specifically not in the scenario we are staring at: trying to prepare kids for a career when no one is quite sure of which direction their own careers are going…which will remain standing when the AI and technology storms rage.

In our experience, we see that passionate, emotionally stable teachers motivate their students to take up ‘their’ subjects and children start off interested because of their love for their teacher. Soon after, because of an open mind and because every area has its fun aspects, kids are smitten by subjects. Once a child likes a subject/area/topic, they put more work into it, getting better and better and therefore liking it even more. A positive vortex and one that we want in more subjects and more children. The fun of learning.

Is there any reason though that learning is limited to textbooks? Why not study the history of math or the men of math and their stories? In honour of all those who call themselves ‘non-math’ people (and because we know that THAT isn’t true), here are some fun reads in the area of math for ALL kinds of students – young, old, open-minded or scared!

1. Mathematwist – a series of stories on math by T. V Padma
2. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (great for the worlds of language and math with Dictionopolis and Digitopolis being places that the tollbooth takes kids to…like in real life, where all worlds collide. Actually, it is only in school that ‘subjects’ stay in their neat, convenient boxes!)
3. Starcursed by Nandini Bajpai on Leelavathi, Bhaskara’s daughter (did she exist? Well, we are glad this book and this character here existed!)
4. The Murderous Math series of books
5. The Life of Fred series (enough cannot be said of the wonder of these books, written by a retired math teacher, incorporating working examples and practice in story form. Highly recommended for those not as interested in math to get turned on to it. Unfortunately, there is no Indian edition and it isn’t inexpensive)
6. The Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat by Theoni Pappas
7. The Rabbit Problem by Emily Gravett, a picture book on Fibonacci numbers
8. The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure by Hans Magnus Enzenberger about a 12 year old terrified of math and a devil who appears in his dreams to make things simple
9. The Great Graph Contest by Loren Leedy for young (and the not-so-young) readers on pie-charts, venn diagrams and simple equations.
10. Math Curse by Jon Scieszka is a picture book about a student who is cursed by the way mathematics works in everyday life from algebra to fractions

and because we are die-hard Rahul Dravid fans here:

11.  Crickematics by Karadi Tales, narrated by Rahul Dravid.  A story about Anirudh, a boy who is struggling with math and whose coach integrates math and cricket statistics.  If only there were more coaches like that (and Rahul Dravid did more for kids like this….I guess we’ll have to be satisfied with the Under-19 team coaching unselfishness!) 😀

Edited to add:

12.  The Man Who Counted: A Collection of Mathematical Adventures by Malba Tahan

Set on the lines of the Arabian Tales, this book is the creation on a Brazilian mathematician who wrote many books under the name Malba Tahan.  Beremiz Samir uses math to solve disputes, give advice….math in story form. I was referred to this book by a theatre teacher (yeah, see…there is no math person, no creative person in isolation…) and ordered it asap.  Glad to have done that.

12.  The Grapes of Math by Greg Tang

16 riddles, couplets and the use of patterns and numbers to solve them.  What’s not to like?

We hope these books are a good start to an undying belief that there are only life-long learners, no ‘math’ or ‘non-math’ people, no ‘science’ folks or ‘creative’ folks, like they all don’t interact to give us unique strengths and perspectives!

This is not an exhaustive list by any means.  Please do write in to share any more of your favourites with us.  If you read these books and like them (or don’t), do write in with your reviews.  We would love to hear from you and will publish your reviews (with or without your names – your choice) here and on Facebook, while jumping with joy that you wrote in. What can I say, we love to hear from our kids…and once you attend one workshop/program, you are ‘our’ kid forever! 😀

The Teachers Collective wishes you a fun time reading, solving and learning!