Calculus for Seven Year Olds [pdf]
Copyright 1991. This was probably making the rounds of homeschooling circles I hung out in.<p>We tend to do a sucky job of teaching math to kids. A lot of elementary school teachers are women who were encouraged to go into early education because they weren&#x27;t doing so well in math and this is very much gender bias.<p>My ex husband wasn&#x27;t good at math. No one told him he should spend his days teaching little kids because of it. He was a career soldier and he just got tutored in college (by me) for his math classes. He was just expected to work at it if it didn&#x27;t come naturally and he did.<p>So we just culturally pass around this idea that math is scary and little kids can&#x27;t learn it rather than going &quot;Well, adults just need to up their game and, by god, explain it better.&quot;<p>My oldest was math phobic by the time I pulled him out of school to homeschool. My one and only goal for math was to get him over his phobia.<p>He loves physics. I hate calculus. Calculus makes sense to him and he has read calculus books for fun.<p>I was good at explaining the math to him and he learned lots of solid math concepts even though he likely has dyscalculia and isn&#x27;t good at crunching the numbers. But I got the concepts through to him and that&#x27;s more important.<p>He&#x27;s what gets called &quot;calculator dependent&quot; in some circles.