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Sometime before I was eight years old (this becomes important later), my mom taught me about negative numbers. This excited my curiosity, and I remember walkin

Sometime before I was eight years old (this becomes important later), my mom taught me about negative numbers. This excited my curiosity, and I remember walking into my mom's bathroom as she was getting ready to shower to ask her what happened when you divided a positive number by a negative number. So yes, my mom is a saint (she answered my question, and got in the shower). Later, in third grade, a substitute teacher was ridiculing the work of a student who'd had the temerity to subtract a larger number from a smaller number. Everyone knew that was impossible. Full of indignation as only an eight-year-old Galileo can be, I stood up (I don't know why I couldn't have just raised my hand like a normal person) and protested that it was entirely possible. For my trouble I shared in the ridicule, and later got a talking-to about "teaching things when people are ready for them." It might look like it, but I'm not leading up to a critique of the elementary school system. My point is different entirely: math can be fun. Maybe not all at once and with Consequences If Not Correctly Learned, and maybe "fun" in the way programming is fun (i.e. still hard), but it's still fun. You've got a long while before your kids have that drummed out of them. Use it. My mom was a Dance-turned-English major, but she still answered my absurd questions in absurd circumstances. I wish everyone could have my parents.

brotchie 14y ago
I totally agree with this sentiment. My parents would always attempt to answer any question, however absurd: What's this made of? wood. What's wood made of? Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen. What's Carbon made of? Protons and Neutrons. What's a Proton made of? It would stop at this point because they weren't Physicists and didn't know about Quarks and Gluons. Following many of these experiences, I though it always appropriate to ask probing questions, and continue to ask them until I understood a problem or situation fully. This attitude continues to this day, though curbed in some social situations. I'm not sure whether this persistent character trait is correlated with my parents behaviour or caused by it. I distinctly remember feeling quite angry during my first "adult" interactions with many of my friend's parents. Most had equal or greater education than my parents, yet when queried about aspect of their field that I knew they had deep knowledge of (eg. Ships engines from a Marine Engineer, Offshore tax havens from a Tax Accountant), they'd be very hesitant and often express "why do you ask so many damn questions?" In hindsight, perhaps this result was in part due to my lack of social awareness and emotional intelligence, but I swear it's imbued their offspring with fundamentally different characteristics. My friend's that had parents such as these have tended to follow more qualitative pursuits (Musicians, writers, journalists) while those with parents similar to mine ended up in strongly quantitative fields (Engineering, Maths, Science). Obviously my experience is a single sample from the distribution, yet I wonder if others have observed a correlation between their own or others parent's attitudes towards answering their children's thorny questions and life / career attitudes? Perhaps it simply comes down to genetics?
- cecilpl 14y ago
  My parents were like this too, and my innate thirst for knowledge led me to persistently question people for years until I realized how much many people seem to dislike this. I love explaining in depth and enjoy the opportunity to explore the boundaries of my knowledge. "Actually, I don't know! Let's find out!" comes out of my mouth often. But so many people seem to get irritated or annoyed when I (inadvertently) expose their lack of knowledge. I still haven't quite figured out why, but I've been told on more than one occasion to "Stop grilling me!" when I'm simply curious about someone's job or how they see things.
  - biot 14y ago
    You lack the knowledge, so it's fascinating for you to learn it for the first time. They already have the knowledge, so it likely gets increasingly tedious the more questions you ask as reciting what they already know lacks the fascination of discovery that you experience.
    - cecilpl 14y ago
      Then am I abnormal in that I get vicarious joy out of seeing someone else learn something for the first time?
      - ctdonath 14y ago
        Relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1053/ http://xkcd.com/1053/ - randall
      - biot 14y ago
        You've probably seen/read interviews with people where the person doing the interviewing has a list of questions already prepared and just goes through them one by one, occasionally asking a question that was just answered as part of a previous question or failing to dive deeper into an answer that is so fascinating that it's a shame not to explore it more. I find those kinds of interviews frustrating since the interviewer is putting no thought into it. A good interviewer is someone who asks questions, then connects them with previously learned information in order to ask a better, more insightful question that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to ask had they not just learned the info. It's clear that this interviewer isn't just going down a list of things to ask. A really good interview is one where the interviewee walks away having learned something, even though they've only answered questions posed to them. Asking questions is a lot like this. If you're more like the first interviewer going through a list of disjoint questions (or questions which only probe for further detail) then it's not surprising to me if people get annoyed. If you're like the second interviewer asking insightful, deeper questions where you're connecting the dots in such a way that you're asking questions that matter and they still get annoyed then perhaps it's just them. Of course, if it's totally new territory for you then you may need to go through seemingly disjoint questions in order to establish a baseline of knowledge to be able to ask more intelligent, interesting questions. You may lose people in your attempt to bootstrap your knowledge to that level. It's also entirely possible that they hate their job but through cognitive dissonance they've learned to cope with it. Your questions may increase the dissonance for the work they do in which case they'd rather avoid thinking about it entirely.
NamTaf 14y ago
The 'fun' of maths isn't the same fun as you get from, say, playing another game of some casual computer game where you're simply switching off and doing something relaxing. It's fun in the sense that it's a challenge and provides immense satisfaction when you work out problems with it. I've noticed that I get a rarely-rivaled sense of satisfaction when I see different bodies of knowledge that I've covered come together. For example, if my physics from school/uni help me solve a problem I'm facing at work, it gives a really good, satisfying feeling of mastery over the topics at hand. Deriving a solution without guidance, simply from your own existing knowledge, is a wonderful feeling. The problem with this is that unless you embrace that 'inquisitive for inquisitive's sake' attitude, you don't easily justify fully exploring subjects like maths to the point of gaining that capacity. It's the same as programming, just as you touched on. Someone could be a moderate programmer if they learn what they need to spit out basic code to achieve an end goal, but you won't feel the same satisfaction of mastery as if you embrace the art and program things 'just because'. The good thing is kids seem to be born with this attitude innately - just look at any young child explore the world around them. It's only really through social conditioning that it seems to be beaten out of them, as you say. Through good role models and leadership (e.g.: from teachers, parents) providing adequate material to feed that curiousity, it can be avoided. It's fantastic that this kid's parents are willing to do what they did, just as your mother was willing to feed your curiousity. Understanding how significant it can be to the development of a child throughout their life is, I think, the key to fully appreciating the role that teachers (formal and informal) have in our society and why they should be valued far more than they often are at present.
- NamTaf 14y ago
  As a corollary to this, perhaps one of the most heartbreaking moments for a kid whose parents welcome their questions and feed them information is when you finally discover they don't actually know everything and that you've exhausted their ability to teach about a certain topic. I remember reaching that point several times and it always upset me, all the way from first playing around with computers and dad not having all the answers, to finally getting to maths beyond what either of my parents were taught towards the end of my high schooling. It's upsetting, but I guess it's also gratifying if you can step back from the moment and realise that it means you're also becoming just as wise as those who you've always looked up to. That's powerful.
gordaco 14y ago
Haha! I had the same story about substracting "impossible" numbers (I distinctly remember that it was 6-9) when I was like 5 or 6. Fortunately I had a very good teacher and she dismissed it politely, saying something like that was a little advanced and would be explained another year. We still talk and laugh about the anecdote whenever I met her on the street. Math IS fun, but it's damn hard to teach, and that's why math teachers end up being hated more often than the rest. Learning math is much more about finding your way to the "eureka" moments than letting someone do it for you, but it's very satisfying once you get the hang of it.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rmc 14y ago
There are often campaigns to "get children/young people interested in science". Except you don't have to teach people how to be interested in science, instead people/society teach people to not be interested in science. Children sometimes ask "why" constantly. Some people tell children to "not ask questions" or "just because". Then when they're 15 we wonder why they've stopped asking why. Grrr.
- VLM 14y ago
  In the old days: "Some people tell children to "not ask questions" or "just because"." In the wikipedia/google era: "That's not important enough for our limited disk space / griefers thought it would be funny to trash it so they feel better when they make others feel sad" I think you'll see an interesting societal shift as the current generation grows up. Its not a positive one. Going from "stop asking questions", "there's no answer" without necessarily judging the questions themselves to "your questions are wrong and your ideas suck and you're wrong to even wonder about this topic" is even more negative.
- gbog 14y ago
  Our times are sad. Do you see any encouragement toward science in the Simpson's? Read any Jules Verne book, you'll see why in these times most kids dreamt about science. Now even Lego became figurines you have to collect, in my time Lego was a big box of colorful squares used to build anything that crossed one's mind.
  - rmc 14y ago
    Read any Jules Verne book, you'll see why in these times most kids dreamt about science. Well the past wasn't brilliant either. Remember in those times, only boys should dream about science. Women were obviously incapable of doing science & maths, so there's no point encouraging them, there's probably something wrong with a woman who wants to do men's work like science.</sarcasm>
- Quiark 14y ago
  I went to the science museum (don't know what is it called exactly) in Barcelona and there they have demonstrations of many laws of physics, such as if you are spinning and extend your hands, you will slow down and vice versa. There were descriptions for each of the demonstration and yet I saw parents with kids who just went from one to the next, didn't bother to understand or read about the demonstration and in general were completely useless in teaching their kids. It was awful.

brotchie 14y ago

I totally agree with this sentiment. My parents would always attempt to answer any question, however absurd: What's this made of? wood. What's wood made of? Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen. What's Carbon made of? Protons and Neutrons. What's a Proton made of? It would stop at this point because they weren't Physicists and didn't know about Quarks and Gluons. Following many of these experiences, I though it always appropriate to ask probing questions, and continue to ask them until I understood a problem or situation fully. This attitude continues to this day, though curbed in some social situations. I'm not sure whether this persistent character trait is correlated with my parents behaviour or caused by it. I distinctly remember feeling quite angry during my first "adult" interactions with many of my friend's parents. Most had equal or greater education than my parents, yet when queried about aspect of their field that I knew they had deep knowledge of (eg. Ships engines from a Marine Engineer, Offshore tax havens from a Tax Accountant), they'd be very hesitant and often express "why do you ask so many damn questions?" In hindsight, perhaps this result was in part due to my lack of social awareness and emotional intelligence, but I swear it's imbued their offspring with fundamentally different characteristics. My friend's that had parents such as these have tended to follow more qualitative pursuits (Musicians, writers, journalists) while those with parents similar to mine ended up in strongly quantitative fields (Engineering, Maths, Science). Obviously my experience is a single sample from the distribution, yet I wonder if others have observed a correlation between their own or others parent's attitudes towards answering their children's thorny questions and life / career attitudes? Perhaps it simply comes down to genetics?

cecilpl 14y ago
My parents were like this too, and my innate thirst for knowledge led me to persistently question people for years until I realized how much many people seem to dislike this. I love explaining in depth and enjoy the opportunity to explore the boundaries of my knowledge. "Actually, I don't know! Let's find out!" comes out of my mouth often. But so many people seem to get irritated or annoyed when I (inadvertently) expose their lack of knowledge. I still haven't quite figured out why, but I've been told on more than one occasion to "Stop grilling me!" when I'm simply curious about someone's job or how they see things.
- biot 14y ago
  You lack the knowledge, so it's fascinating for you to learn it for the first time. They already have the knowledge, so it likely gets increasingly tedious the more questions you ask as reciting what they already know lacks the fascination of discovery that you experience.
  - cecilpl 14y ago
    Then am I abnormal in that I get vicarious joy out of seeing someone else learn something for the first time?
    - ctdonath 14y ago
      Relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1053/ http://xkcd.com/1053/ - randall
    - biot 14y ago
      You've probably seen/read interviews with people where the person doing the interviewing has a list of questions already prepared and just goes through them one by one, occasionally asking a question that was just answered as part of a previous question or failing to dive deeper into an answer that is so fascinating that it's a shame not to explore it more. I find those kinds of interviews frustrating since the interviewer is putting no thought into it. A good interviewer is someone who asks questions, then connects them with previously learned information in order to ask a better, more insightful question that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to ask had they not just learned the info. It's clear that this interviewer isn't just going down a list of things to ask. A really good interview is one where the interviewee walks away having learned something, even though they've only answered questions posed to them. Asking questions is a lot like this. If you're more like the first interviewer going through a list of disjoint questions (or questions which only probe for further detail) then it's not surprising to me if people get annoyed. If you're like the second interviewer asking insightful, deeper questions where you're connecting the dots in such a way that you're asking questions that matter and they still get annoyed then perhaps it's just them. Of course, if it's totally new territory for you then you may need to go through seemingly disjoint questions in order to establish a baseline of knowledge to be able to ask more intelligent, interesting questions. You may lose people in your attempt to bootstrap your knowledge to that level. It's also entirely possible that they hate their job but through cognitive dissonance they've learned to cope with it. Your questions may increase the dissonance for the work they do in which case they'd rather avoid thinking about it entirely.

NamTaf 14y ago

The 'fun' of maths isn't the same fun as you get from, say, playing another game of some casual computer game where you're simply switching off and doing something relaxing. It's fun in the sense that it's a challenge and provides immense satisfaction when you work out problems with it. I've noticed that I get a rarely-rivaled sense of satisfaction when I see different bodies of knowledge that I've covered come together. For example, if my physics from school/uni help me solve a problem I'm facing at work, it gives a really good, satisfying feeling of mastery over the topics at hand. Deriving a solution without guidance, simply from your own existing knowledge, is a wonderful feeling. The problem with this is that unless you embrace that 'inquisitive for inquisitive's sake' attitude, you don't easily justify fully exploring subjects like maths to the point of gaining that capacity. It's the same as programming, just as you touched on. Someone could be a moderate programmer if they learn what they need to spit out basic code to achieve an end goal, but you won't feel the same satisfaction of mastery as if you embrace the art and program things 'just because'. The good thing is kids seem to be born with this attitude innately - just look at any young child explore the world around them. It's only really through social conditioning that it seems to be beaten out of them, as you say. Through good role models and leadership (e.g.: from teachers, parents) providing adequate material to feed that curiousity, it can be avoided. It's fantastic that this kid's parents are willing to do what they did, just as your mother was willing to feed your curiousity. Understanding how significant it can be to the development of a child throughout their life is, I think, the key to fully appreciating the role that teachers (formal and informal) have in our society and why they should be valued far more than they often are at present.

NamTaf 14y ago
As a corollary to this, perhaps one of the most heartbreaking moments for a kid whose parents welcome their questions and feed them information is when you finally discover they don't actually know everything and that you've exhausted their ability to teach about a certain topic. I remember reaching that point several times and it always upset me, all the way from first playing around with computers and dad not having all the answers, to finally getting to maths beyond what either of my parents were taught towards the end of my high schooling. It's upsetting, but I guess it's also gratifying if you can step back from the moment and realise that it means you're also becoming just as wise as those who you've always looked up to. That's powerful.

gordaco 14y ago

Haha! I had the same story about substracting "impossible" numbers (I distinctly remember that it was 6-9) when I was like 5 or 6. Fortunately I had a very good teacher and she dismissed it politely, saying something like that was a little advanced and would be explained another year. We still talk and laugh about the anecdote whenever I met her on the street. Math IS fun, but it's damn hard to teach, and that's why math teachers end up being hated more often than the rest. Learning math is much more about finding your way to the "eureka" moments than letting someone do it for you, but it's very satisfying once you get the hang of it.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

rmc 14y ago

There are often campaigns to "get children/young people interested in science". Except you don't have to teach people how to be interested in science, instead people/society teach people to not be interested in science. Children sometimes ask "why" constantly. Some people tell children to "not ask questions" or "just because". Then when they're 15 we wonder why they've stopped asking why. Grrr.

VLM 14y ago
In the old days: "Some people tell children to "not ask questions" or "just because"." In the wikipedia/google era: "That's not important enough for our limited disk space / griefers thought it would be funny to trash it so they feel better when they make others feel sad" I think you'll see an interesting societal shift as the current generation grows up. Its not a positive one. Going from "stop asking questions", "there's no answer" without necessarily judging the questions themselves to "your questions are wrong and your ideas suck and you're wrong to even wonder about this topic" is even more negative.
gbog 14y ago
Our times are sad. Do you see any encouragement toward science in the Simpson's? Read any Jules Verne book, you'll see why in these times most kids dreamt about science. Now even Lego became figurines you have to collect, in my time Lego was a big box of colorful squares used to build anything that crossed one's mind.
- rmc 14y ago
  Read any Jules Verne book, you'll see why in these times most kids dreamt about science. Well the past wasn't brilliant either. Remember in those times, only boys should dream about science. Women were obviously incapable of doing science & maths, so there's no point encouraging them, there's probably something wrong with a woman who wants to do men's work like science.</sarcasm>
Quiark 14y ago
I went to the science museum (don't know what is it called exactly) in Barcelona and there they have demonstrations of many laws of physics, such as if you are spinning and extend your hands, you will slow down and vice versa. There were descriptions for each of the demonstration and yet I saw parents with kids who just went from one to the next, didn't bother to understand or read about the demonstration and in general were completely useless in teaching their kids. It was awful.