Today is Giving Tuesday! While Math for Love isn’t a nonprofit, there are a number we work with, advise, or just like. So if you’re looking for a way to help kids get their hands on and minds around great mathematics, consider giving to these organizations. Zeno focuses on providing great mathematical experiences for pre-K kids in Seattle and beyond. They’re a wonderful organization with a fantastic mission. Donate to Zeno There are a lot of math circles around the country doing wonderful work. Math Circles of Chicago is the only one I know that runs free circles for under-s ..read more

Quite some time ago (9 years!?) I invented a quick little classroom game called Damult Dice. It’s a dice game played with three dice. You roll, choose two to add, and multiply the sum by the third. In general, you’re trying to get as many points as you can per turn, though readers suggested many variations and improvements! This week I received an email from a teacher named Christine who had spun off a variation she called Damult Dice Division. I thought it was a clever version, and wanted to share it here. How to Play (the basic version) On your turn, roll 3 dice. Choose 2 to mak ..read more

I recently wrote about the three-fold nature of math education. The goal, I wrote should be: To give everyone a baseline understanding of numeracy. To give everyone at least a few glimpses of genuine mathematical beauty and power. To allow those who might want to go on in mathematics-intensive fields like science, computer science, engineering, mathematics, etc. the preparation they need. Yesterday I was listening to the radio, and happened to hear something that drove home just how important that baseline understanding of numeracy is, and why we need it for an informed electorate ..read more

We need to unpack the phrase, and attendant phrases, that are so popular today, and that are in some ways so radical and unintuitive that we both believe and disbelieve them at the same time. Anyone can do math Everyone is a mathematician You’re good at math (and don’t know it) There’s no such thing as a math person. Everyone can do math! And so on. These are correctives, and important ones, to another, earlier set of problematic (and faulty) axioms, that assumed the world is divided up into “math people” and “I’m-not-a-math-person” people. There are multitudes who believe they can’t do mat ..read more