Maturity and learning maths

The concepts that underlie maths are not complex or difficult. However, those of us who use maths everyday take them for granted. Young children do not necessarily naturally pick up these concepts. They have to be explained to them. Unfortunately, so often they are not explained well, because when someone takes something for granted they lack the ability to explain what it means. [As a test of this, try explaining the meaning of the word “as”]. Children are, by definition, immature. While they are programmed to learn, they are not necessarily mentally equipped to learn abstract concepts. Ability to do this is a sign of maturity. Does this doom the child who is slower to mature to an inability to ever succeed at maths? Unfortunately, the answer to this is “very possibly”. Of course the degree of disadvantage that a child will suffer will depend upon the extent to which their development lags that of the average of their age group, or perhaps even lags that of the most advanced in their class at school. The principal question that arises from this observation is “how can we help a child who is slower to develop to achieve at maths?”. At Puppet Maths we have created an imaginary world in which our puppets experience everyday problems that illustrate in a concrete fashion the abstract ideas that abound in Maths. This was developed from my work in schools with 11-13 year olds who were failing at maths because they had never grasped the basics of the subject. All of these children were late developers, and still had relatively juvenile view of the world, but were old enough to have become embarrassed at their lack of ability at maths. Our aim at Puppet Maths is to engage young minds, at home or at school, and illustrate the principles of maths so that children can use their imagination to grasp the subject.