Entrance Slip: Math and our bodies
When we talk about "bodily experiences" in 'academic' subjects, we often talk about it in experiences, connections, and integrations. These bodily experiences are so often discounted in schools, and academic subjects are relegated to this dry, paper-pencil arena of "watch, copy, reproduce". They are often stripped of any personality, creativity, experience, or identity. But they don't have to be. In fact, they're not: we have forced them into these boxes and they are constantly trying to get out. Here is the connection to art that is so explored in the article. I love the incorporation of showing students that there is creativity in math, and that math is a part of creativity in art. Shapes, patterns, structure, and form in math all related to visuals, movement, melodies, and more in all different types of art. They are so interconnected in a way that students often miss or discount. Math naturally fits into all these areas and it wants to be seen. When students are given the chance to embody math, to work with math, to experience, manipulate, and interact with it, their understanding, appreciation, and view of math expands far beyond what they imagined. As Daina's watercolour story in the article shows, this doesn't just help expand students' math understanding, but in their interconnected understanding. When we can see connections, similarities, and transferable skills between different areas of knowledge, we have much better understanding in all of them. By embodying math, we don't just improve students' math ability, but we improve their whole learning environment.
This experiential embodiment of math is not the only way though. One area of embodied math that fascinates me is in literal bodied-math: the idea of using our own physical bodies to interact with math. There is nothing we know more instinctually than our own bodies. Some of the earliest skills we learn as kids is spatial awareness of our bodies, how we feel or how things feel, how we move, how we react, what pain is, what things lead to different physical sensations... the list goes on. Before we truly (if ever) understand our minds, we learn intimate details of our own bodies. This intimate connection we have with our own physical feeling is something incredibly under-used in schools. If we can relate content to a student's own sense of physical being, we can tap into their most intrinsic knowledge. While different subjects lend more obviously to physicality (PE, Art, Music, Drama, etc), those are not the only subjects that can incorporate bodies, movement, and physicality. In math, there are multiple sides of this. We can do the most obvious route, which would be 3D models, examples, and structures, like the crocheted hyperbolic plane mentioned in the article. But what excites me most is movement. Yes, I love getting 3D models that students can interact with, but I also want to find ways of forming inquiry so that students move. I want them to get up, I want them to have to use that intrinsic bodily knowledge they have, I want them to relate it. I don't want them to just calculate how far a paper plane will fly with whatever dimensions, I want them to get out and do it. I want students to experience different units in distance measurement by walking or throwing a ball to feel it. I want students to experience different shapes by using their body. Which shape is strongest? Well, let's try to build a human pyramid and a human square and you tell me what you find. How do we know that these geometric proofs work? Well let's dance it out and measure these angles, bisections, and lines with our arms, legs, measuring sticks, sticks from the woods, and anything else. When students get out, move, and use their own understanding of themselves to relate to math, I think we offer them an opportunity to fit their learning into a much deeper, more personal place in their minds and bodies. I don't want math to just be something on paper, or something in nature that's only ever seen in photograph. I want it to be something lived, moved, experienced, interacted with, and something that hits them in the face (metaphorically) everytime they move their bodies.
This experiential embodiment of math is not the only way though. One area of embodied math that fascinates me is in literal bodied-math: the idea of using our own physical bodies to interact with math. There is nothing we know more instinctually than our own bodies. Some of the earliest skills we learn as kids is spatial awareness of our bodies, how we feel or how things feel, how we move, how we react, what pain is, what things lead to different physical sensations... the list goes on. Before we truly (if ever) understand our minds, we learn intimate details of our own bodies. This intimate connection we have with our own physical feeling is something incredibly under-used in schools. If we can relate content to a student's own sense of physical being, we can tap into their most intrinsic knowledge. While different subjects lend more obviously to physicality (PE, Art, Music, Drama, etc), those are not the only subjects that can incorporate bodies, movement, and physicality. In math, there are multiple sides of this. We can do the most obvious route, which would be 3D models, examples, and structures, like the crocheted hyperbolic plane mentioned in the article. But what excites me most is movement. Yes, I love getting 3D models that students can interact with, but I also want to find ways of forming inquiry so that students move. I want them to get up, I want them to have to use that intrinsic bodily knowledge they have, I want them to relate it. I don't want them to just calculate how far a paper plane will fly with whatever dimensions, I want them to get out and do it. I want students to experience different units in distance measurement by walking or throwing a ball to feel it. I want students to experience different shapes by using their body. Which shape is strongest? Well, let's try to build a human pyramid and a human square and you tell me what you find. How do we know that these geometric proofs work? Well let's dance it out and measure these angles, bisections, and lines with our arms, legs, measuring sticks, sticks from the woods, and anything else. When students get out, move, and use their own understanding of themselves to relate to math, I think we offer them an opportunity to fit their learning into a much deeper, more personal place in their minds and bodies. I don't want math to just be something on paper, or something in nature that's only ever seen in photograph. I want it to be something lived, moved, experienced, interacted with, and something that hits them in the face (metaphorically) everytime they move their bodies.
Yes!! I am so with you on the idea of math and body movement (and even dance) and the very important idea of using our intimate knowledge of our selves in motion as the basis for learning. So great to read this!
ReplyDelete