Julie R Fricke

In discussing math answers with forvrkate I shared with her my plan of action for art class. Back when I was in high school art class, I found that my best plan was to devote fully half the allotted time given for the assignment to letting ideas stew creatively around in my head. In other words, thinking it over is at least half the process. After mulling things around, I would get to work designing or gluing or building or whatever the project required. People who had started promptly used up just as much energy as me. But it was my good ideas which gave me the better grade. And those better ideas took an investment of time.

Of course this was counter to everything I was striving to do as a high school student. Everyone knows that the most common, pervasive, yea, pandemic problem of high school students is procrastination. Of course many of us never outgrow it. So to purposely put something off seemed like heresy. But I found it to be the key to success.

I'm suggesting that a similar process is necessary  while developing math ideas. Most of us see people who solve math problems as people who just KNOW how to do it.  I postulate that there is some  very important cogitation time required before miraculously producing cool math.

I've always been a huge proponent of the idea that creativity is essential to doing math, though most non- science people would find that statement bizarre. That's one reason I teach creative problem solving to my math club students.  I know many kids who consider themselves math whizzes because they can follow ordinary algorithms to solve ordinary problems. I'm not impressed. But give them something out of the box. See what they do with that??!!  Ha! Take That!

Taking time to solve math puzzles would probably cure many peoples' trouble with the most important math question of all time: "Does this answer make sense?" Well, if you took the time to mull the problem over, you would probably see whether  it did or not.

I also liken it to a phenomenon that I experience daily. I start the crossword puzzle in the morning. I don't really have time to finish it, but oh well. By the afternoon when I come back to it, I find that clues which were completely opaque to me somehow spring out at me later and seem easy. With a hard crossword, it might take another day or two. But the extra time always brings more to my mind than the first round would have indicated. (And the really hard crosswords I just stay away from!!!!)

Similarly, I find that my knowledge of Norwegian has in some ways improved over the years in spite of an embarrassing lack of practice. Though I have forgotten much, the rest of what I know has sunken deeper into my conscious and seems more a part of me than before. It's as if I have been processing it all these years.  Now if only I could bring the rest of it up to date.

To hear me go on so about math you would think that I must be the math whiz of all time. Alas, I am not. I'm not the whiz kid kind nor am I the thoughtful kind. I am pretty creative, though. I can put together some fun math lessons. And I can design you a really cool art project! I can sometimes put the two together. I can knit you a Klein bottle hat... without a pattern!!!

Can I get a paycheck for that?