A week of Discovery

Lucas is a genius. You all know that, right?

Last Tuesday I came home from work to learn that he had worked on multiplication at school. If you're tired of hearing it, just go take a walk around the block while I brag for a little while. Yeah, he's a genius. Just imagine the pride welling in me. 2286x4 was the problem he showed me.

Are you back? How was the weather?

Well, over dinner I found out that multiplication was just a jumping-off point. Come Wednesday he had every intention of tackling division. I wasn't sure if he was really going to learn it the next day or if he was pointing out that it is the next step in the math hierarchy.

That evening was parent night at the boys' school. For once, I went. I listened to the elementary teacher (Ellen, who Lucas should have later this year or certainly next). She spoke for ninety minutes on the merits of the Montessori style and I'm sold. This is the third "year" Lucas has been enrolled, but this was the best selling of the school I've heard. One example jumped out at me. She said that kids in the fourth or fifth grade will discover how to find the area of a shape on their own. Naturally, they have to be given the tools to work toward this, but they do it as little kids without a teacher showing them. I was amazed (remember I often hear from Kim how woefully prepared college students are). I asked he to repeat herself, and sure enough they are learning geometry. That's high school math.

One of the other parents there is a middle school math teacher and she commented that if it were up to her they'd use this style in the public schools. Fat chance. I'm not here to denigrate our education system, just to brag. I spoke with Lucas' teacher after the presentation and she told me she had introduced him to multiplication as a way to distract him from something that was upsetting him, and that sure enough they would be working on division the next day. I don't remember the exact numbers but the problem was something like 3696/3. Obviously it's evenly divisible, but much more advanced than 4/2.

We made one other discovery this week. Another child has been found who has the same chromosomal deletion as Jack. I'll let/try to coerce Kim into writing about that. But it's a girl who's eight. We'll have a chance to get updates on her progression to see what may be in store for Jack.