DING! Next slide, please.

Emma is learning a new math. Not the "new" math from my childhood, but a NEW new math.

Maybe it's even the NEW new new math.

I don't want to explain it, but basically it's very empirical, which means that kids guess a lot, and work out division problems by making a boatload of multiplication problems.

It's kind of like learning to spell without learning the alphabet.

It's like giving a child an encyclopedia when they need a dictionary.

So, after months of a formalized hit-and-miss approach, they finally teach the kids long division.

But Emma can't get it.

I keep showing her, over and over, and try to make her see that all the problems are THE SAME, but each time for her it's individual; it's new.  She can't abstract the process from the examples.

Nelson's tried to explain it too.

Emma gets frustrated, and so do I.

And I don't know what to do.  I point it out, tell her to line up the numbers.  Start from the left and work your way right.  For her, it's like voodoo.

At the same time, she calls it "the standard algorithm" -- which I find a bit disturbing.  I feel that for Emma, it's an exalted name for a mystery.  It's almost a guarantee of incomprehension.

As I struggle to help Emma to get it, I keep remembering the Math nun.

Back in high school, the Math nun told me that I probably wouldn't be a good Math teacher.

"People who had trouble learning Math make better Math teachers, because they understand how someone else can have trouble understanding.  But you're bright, so you can't relate."

She was one of my best teachers.  And I only thought, just now, that maybe she was talking about herself.