609. Measuring

Some families live in their own houses, and some have to rent living quarters. This is a simple, well-known fact of life, but it’s important to be aware of the effect of this dichotomy on children. Children who live in houses usually think of that as normal. Some can’t imagine why anyone would choose to…

Parents tend not to want their children to end up being punished eternally for the way they’ve lived their lives. Most people I know don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t think it’s going to happen. Never having actually died myself (as far as I can remember), I can’t be sure, but it just…

As we teach children to read, we try to get them to do so independently. We teach them various strategies they can use to figure out words they don’t know. They can use context or phonetic clues. They can take words apart, figure out the parts, and then put them together again. Some teachers have…

I’ve always enjoyed teaching children to do what I’ve called “borrowing across a zero.” It’s what you do when you solve a problem like 302 – 158. I’ve always told children a story, using the digits involved as characters. I know this approach bothers some mathematicians, who like to keep mathematics pure, and I know…

One word I sometimes enjoy playing with is “professor.” I haven’t bothered to find out how the word came to mean what it usually means, but I enjoy thinking of a professor as one who professes. That is, it’s someone who professes to know and teach, but may or may not actually know and teach….

I give children piano lessons. I won’t accept money for it, because I don’t want to have to think about whether I deserve to be paid. I’m retired, and I don’t have to deal with that any more. And my approach to teaching piano is unorthodox enough that most parents could easily raise eyebrows about…