Joy cometh in the morning.

I know that two and two make four - & should be glad to prove it too if I could - though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 & 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure. ~George Gordon, Lord Byron

I don't agree with mathematics; the sum total of zeros is a frightening figure. ~Stanislaw J. Lec, More Unkempt Thoughts

I don't agree with mathematics. I agree with math so little I rarely use it. Cooking is all done by how the thing looks & feels. Any numbers floating around are just to be used as a rough guide. Money is not math. Money is in a realm all its own.

So teaching Ditz math has been an exercise in torture for both of us. We started well. I can add & subtract fairly well to ten ~ even 20 if I take off my shoes & socks. I can multiply with a little help from my fingers & divide unless you mean long division ~ which is just silly.

Seriously though, we began well. I did a lot of concrete math with Ditz & we originally began music for mathematical purposes. Math was Ditz's favourite subject. It required no writing & could be relied upon to behave itself. I was careful to express no negativity about a subject I dislike intensely. Somewhere down the years all that changed. Now I couldn't tell you which of us hates it the most but I can assure you no subject is more reviled. The good news is we have the basics solidly under us.

We have come unstuck over fractions. I do not know how this can be. This is the child that will wave a sheet of music manuscript under my nose without bating an eyelash that has things like 16 notes to a four count scribbled all over it & what is that, pray tell, if not fractions? The stranger the count the less trouble Ditz has with it musically so I am at a loss for why she has so much trouble otherwise unless she has a bar of chocolate available.

However we did manage, albeit slowly, to add fractions, subtract fractions & even multiply fractions. What we could not seem to do was divide fractions. When you are asked to do the exact opposite of the result you want [multiply to get a division] it enters the realms of the ludicrous & well Ditz knows it.

Now I know kids plateau out & sometimes you have to put things aside & come back to them later & lo & behold, suddenly they *get* it! So we tried that ~ three times. We haven't done much math in a while. Dearest tried & Liddy tried & Sian tried & Ditz was just as bamboozled as ever. There are lots of steps & they have to be done in the right order & I know that is one of the problems. Ditz & I aren't strong on sequencing. Ditz also omits steps from her written work so backtracking to pick up problems is just a tad difficult.

This happy state of affairs might have continued indefinitely but unfortunately for Ditz we use an umbrella school. This does not work much like an American umbrella school from what I can gather but once a term our supervisor gets on a ferry & comes for a visit. Friday was her day. Math was on the agenda. [sssh...Don't tell Ditz but I asked if she'd go over the division with Ditz.]

The Lord has been both gracious & merciful to us. We love our supervisor ~ & we had some choice ones when we were with another provider so we appreciate Marilyn no end. She is the sweetest lady, has the patience of Job...& she is a math teacher by training. Now I admit when I first learnt that I rather quailed in my shoes as the math freaks & the music weirdos rarely have much to say to each other & I feared a clash of priorities but there was no need to fear. Marilyn appreciates Ditz in all her Ditziness ~ & she sure took some appreciating yesterday! One hour & 45 minutes later Ditz may just have grasped enough to be able to move forward despite all the eye rolling.

Marilyn has worked with us for going on 3 years. She knows in every other area we have a grip & move forward steadily so she wasn't too fazed about looking over the rest of Ditz's work though knowing music is Ditz's thing she was interested in the grade 4 stuff she's studying. Every time I look at it I see fractions & wonder how come Ditz can't do the ones in her math book!

The good news? There is something called foundational maths ~ probably better understood as math for dummies or math for the unmathical & that is what we will use to finish off Ditz's math. No geometry. No algebra. No trigonometry. For the Lord's bountiful mercies I am truly grateful!