More Than One Teacher

My son came home recently with new math homework.  He was proud and eager to show me.  "Look, Mom!  I'm doing double digit multiplication now!"

When it was time to do homework that evening, I sat down to watch.  I showed him I had confidence he could do it and let him show off his new skills to me.  After a couple of problems, I noticed he was circling one of the digits - something I'd never been taught to do.  I asked him what the circle meant and he explained it to me.  It helped them identify how many zero's to carry down.  OK, great.  Show me more!

I watched him do a few more problems, and noticed that some of the answers were coming out with too many digits.  I pointed one out, suggesting the number looked long for that problem, and asked how he got the answer.  This allowed me to identify what his thought process was and where he was making the mistake.  I followed by explaining it in a way that made sense to me.  "Here, try it this way."  We had a quick discussion on where different numbers went and what they meant.  We work as a team in these situation making sense of what each other is trying to say.

After a minute, he said, "Oh, now I get it.  Mom, you explain things better than my teachers!"  He redid the problems he'd made the mistake on, and this time got the right answers.  I continued to follow along, encouraging him as he went.  Occasionally he makes a careless mistake.  I point it out just by saying, "Are you sure that one's right?"  When he double-checks, he's able to find his own error.

The point here is not so much that I'm a better teacher than his teacher at school, but rather students need multiple teachers.  There are many different ways to explain the same thing, and different students will respond to different explanations.  The best teachers can explain the same thing many different ways.  Adding additional "teachers" to the mix (whether they're parents, tutors, siblings, or fellow students) is always a bonus.  The more different way something is explained to you, the better chance you have of, "getting it."