Amanda is a current Mathnasium student. After every session, she bounces out of the centering saying “The math at Mathnasium is easy.” Her father wondered why Amanda suddenly considers math easy. She never felt that way before. He got concerned that she wasn’t actually learning anything. He scheduled the recommended conference with Allison, the center director, to find out what was going on.
Allison showed Amanda’s father everything she had been working on. She even showed him Amanda’s pre-assessment and her post-assessment so he could see the gains she had made. On the pre-assessment she had mastered only 62% of the fifth grade curriculum and on the post-assessment she had mastered 98% of the fifth grade curriculum. Allison assured him that Amanda would be prepared for sixth grade math this fall. He asked Allison why she thought Amanda thinks Mathnasium math is easier, if it was the same level math she had been doing in school.
Allison laughed and said, “We hear that a lot around here.” She explained why kids think Mathnasium is easier than school.
All of these factors make kids think the math is easier. Kids mistake the lack of frustration and their own growing confidence for the math being easy. Educators call this learning at the child’s “zone of proximal development.” The rest of us call the level of learning “not too easy and not too hard.”
Although Amanda is entering sixth grade prepared, her father decided to enroll Amanda in Mathnasium of Parker for another session. He wanted her to feel supported in math this year, get help with her math homework and take that burden off the family, and to even get ahead.
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