Part of the reason I was never a brilliant math student had to do with the chasm of difference between how I was taught math and how I understood it. Art has always been 'my thing' so in spite of all my math teachers' best efforts to learn by the book, I inevitably accessed the subject artistically. Specifically, through patterns.
In school, I was an incorrigible margin-doodler and I would always get mad whenever a teacher scolded me for not showing my work. The crazy cartoon geometry framing my homework showed how I worked the math problems! I never understood why my teachers got so annoyed with me for finding answers in my own way. It was an early and often-repeated lesson in how seeing the world differently is widely equated with cheating.
Now look at me. Parent of a school-aged child and worried sick about the cookie-cutter curriculum he's up against… Sometimes it still seems that way, doesn't it? Like it's us versus classrooms? But kids and parents are better armed these days; we have the internet, and it is full of useful alternatives for students who need them. I even found an example of someone demonstrating multiplication the way I taught myself to understand it. Specifically, through patterns.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-e8fzqv3CE[/youtube]
Vi Hart is my favorite mathematician and among my top five favorite YouTubers. Her videos are an effective combination of straightforward, smart and charming, and I recommend them highly to geeks of all kinds.
