The Point of Grade 9 Math...

...might not be the math. Just listened to a CBC Ideas broadcast featuring Jean Briggs, an anthropologist, talking about Inuit strategies of child rearing and teaching and, somehow out of that it occurs to me that my focus in Grade 09 math doesn't necessarily have to be the math. It's about learning to learn and about seeing the world differently. It's about the mental equivalent of what a good masseuse might do to your spine in loosening it up and allowing you to move not just more freely, but differently altogether as a result.

Just remembered a connection to the Inuit. According to Briggs, children were often asked things like "Do you (incorrectly) imagine that such and such is the case?" The method is extremely open-ended and non-prescriptive and forces/expects that the child will generate their own response. Prescriptive right and wrong responses are eschewed.

Also, according to Briggs, some variation of counter-factuals are used. An answer might be given that is intentionally wrong with the expectation that the child will know it is wrong and deduce the "correct" and opposite answer.

Imagine if, in my math class, I said to one side of the room "For this class, I want you to only give me wrong answers." And, at the same time I tried to lead/push/divert them into productively wrong answers. Maybe I could (a) make them less afraid to be wrong and (b) get some good insights out of it.

I wonder how some of my super-keen kids would take to this?