WWI, Multiplication and FANBOYS
This is a “flashback” blog … it has been in my files since late last winter, and today, I read it again and was reminded that it does indeed have relevance. My thanks to my now 16 year old daughter, Callan, for her contribution.
(March 2010) I had a fascinating conversation with my 15 year old daughter tonight. You know, you have to catch them when THEY want to talk. Anyway, the conversation flowed from how World War I began, to the finer points of learning multiplication tables, and ended with a laughing discussion about “FANBOYS”.
I’ll let her tell the story from here, because this blog was her idea:
My US history tutor asked us this week if anyone knew how World War I began. We all sat there momentarily, looking like deer in the headlights, until he mentioned something about “The Domino Effect”. Suddenly, I remembered a section in my 8th grade history book that mentioned the start of the war and described just that way. I just started spieling off how the war began. In 8th grade, I hated this history course! I thought it had too much detail. There was too much stuff for anyone to process and remember. Two years later, I was so excited because I actually knew what was going on in a high school tutorial class and could relate it well!! I could still see the cartoon visualizing the “dominoes”.
You know, in my mathematics course at the community college, we have been working on factorization. Our professor asked if anyone knew how to tell if a number was divisible by 3 or 9. And I remembered from 3rd grade Calvert that when they introduced multiplication, they told us ways to discover that very thing. I remember seeing the examples. I am the youngest person in my college math class – but the only one who knew how to answer the professor. And I learned it in third grade. Go Calvert!
And then the last thing was also at the tutorial on Monday. I was sitting in 3rd period study hall, working on a map for US history, and a friend of mine was working on an English assignment that involved coordinating conjunctions. She couldn’t remember them – but she knew that there were several of them. Instantly, I recalled sixth grade grammar and a picture in my grammar book that showed a group of boys with baseball stuff – the FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so!
They say that good things come in threes – I had three good results in one day because of Calvert. It made me really happy that I had been a “Calvert kid”. I didn’t always enjoy it at the time – in fact, my mom would tell you that I was, um, difficult. But I sure am grateful now. To be able to retain information that I thought I would not be able to remember, and finding it useful later made it really worth it.
My thanks to Callan for telling her experience! This actually gives me a great set up for what I want to talk to you about next – which is learning styles. I had a great conversation with a homeschool mom last week who was not aware of them — and in my next blog I want to tell you my personal experience. Knowing my kids’ learning styles has opened a whole new world for me.
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