Classroom Difficulties with Mathematics

     Something to think about . . . do some of us still cling? . . . obediently and thoughtlessly . . . to beliefs such as

                I can't / poets can't     understand mathematics
                                or
                I can't / math people can't     understand poetry 

Current interactive teaching/learning processes are helping to revise those negative attitudes -- and my thoughts on the subject were brought to mind by a poem that showed up recently in my email.  It is Poem 15 in the Poetry 180 project, an activity initiated in 2002 by Poet Laureate Billy Collins in 2002 -- a project that provides a poem for students for each day of the traditional school year.  (Each Sunday subscribers get an email that provides a link to a poem for each day of the coming week.)

    Poem 15 is by poet Tom Wayman and entitled "The Poet."  Here are several of its lines -- not words I agree with but related to the ideas expressed above and possibly useful for provoking classroom discussion!

        Has difficulty classifying and categorizing objects
        Has difficulty retaining such things as
        addition and subtraction facts, or multiplication tables
        May recognize a word one day and not the next

Tom Weyman's complete poem, "The Poet," is available here.  Another Weyman poem, "Stacking Chairs," was featured in this 2021 blog posting.