Math Journal: Memories of Math

My memories of elementary school mathematics lessons are complicated. The reason behind is that I have learned under two different curriculums at different times, and the transition was quite a drastic one.

I was born in Hong Kong, and I received my first education there, until 10 years old. Mathematics, to me, was very hard. I remember bringing home a lot of homework, which often brought me frustration. We had large and heavy textbooks, and our work were usually done in little workbooks with grid papers. I never quite understood why we had to do math on those workbooks, because we never drew graphs in them (at least not from my memory), just numbers. We had to write tiny too, to fit in those narrow lines. As a result, my workbooks were always messy.

I have never been a brilliant math student in Hong Kong. There were lots of drilling and memorizing. The teachers and parents believe that practice makes perfect, and that is how the system works – rote learning. It seems that we kept on doing the questions and problems until we know the magical formulas.

On the other hand, after I immigrated to Canada, a huge change took place. I was in Gr. 5, and what the teacher taught seemed so simple to me! It was a whole new world for me. At first, I did not get very good marks because my English was limited, so I had trouble with word problems. But once I got better in the language, I started to succeed in math. I got great marks, I got praised, and I felt really proud of myself. We had games, activities, group work, and not even half as much homework as those I got in Hong Kong. In another words, math became fun for me.

Rote learning did not really work for me. It was just too much. I think that it works for the “smarter” children, because the more they practice, the more they get it into their brain. However, in my case, it was not beneficial because I needed to understand the underlying concepts and ideas before repeating steps and algorithms over and over again. It couldn’t help if I did not know exactly what I was doing. I did not like that at all. It seemed like I could never finish the questions, and the bits and pieces of knowledge just kept on building and building until it becomes too overwhelming. I remember hearing my Gr.3 Math teacher saying that we were rubbish when she got frustrated at us, which, of course, hurt a lot in a very scary way.

Canada’s classroom surely was more fun and interesting. We seldom did group activities in Hong Kong, but there was interaction between students here. People raised their hands, asked questions, gave answers, and the atmosphere was very positive for learning to happen. The teacher wasn’t the “boss”, and each of us could contribute to the class discussions. The teachers were also more positive, they gave compliments (and stickers), and they would not hurt the students’ self-esteem.

I think math is about thinking and inquiring, while much of what I did in early years was doing and repeating. That is probably a major reason of why I like it better here.