Comment on Anon describes experience

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unmagical@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Speaking of not teaching things kids have to unlearn later, I’ve often wondered why we don’t just start teaching math with the expectation that you solve for “x”.

i.e. Instead of

2 + 3 = 

Write

2 + 3 = x

This would prime the child to expect that math is about finding an unknown and you’ve already introduced the unknown that will be most prominent in their academic career. This will also reduce the steps necessary when teaching how to balance an equation as you no longer have the “well actually you were always solving for ‘x’ we just didn’t write it, so you didn’t know, also we’re never going to use ‘x’ for multiplication again.” stage.

But I’m not a teacher, parent, or child psychologist and this is just my blathering hypothesis based on watching my peers struggle with math for years.

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