I take your point, but honestly I’d bet many would be ready to learn about complex numbers a lot earlier if they were taught in this way.
Having such a memorable physical analogy “because I said so” is already miles better than the purely abstract “multiplying negatives makes a positive because I said so”, even if it still doesn’t mean you could teach extremely high level maths to six year olds.
Agreed. I’m trying to keep the reigns on an 11 year old, and we frequently talk both in what I would say is abstract. Also have to keep it somewhat grounded, because skipping multiple grades in math does not mean you will understand some things. Absolute value was an interesting conversation, and to be fair so was multiplying negatives.
I take your point, but honestly I’d bet many would be ready to learn about complex numbers a lot earlier if they were taught in this way.
Having such a memorable physical analogy “because I said so” is already miles better than the purely abstract “multiplying negatives makes a positive because I said so”, even if it still doesn’t mean you could teach extremely high level maths to six year olds.
Agreed. I’m trying to keep the reigns on an 11 year old, and we frequently talk both in what I would say is abstract. Also have to keep it somewhat grounded, because skipping multiple grades in math does not mean you will understand some things. Absolute value was an interesting conversation, and to be fair so was multiplying negatives.