"This is SO HARD!" he exclaims as he throws his head back, a tortured look on his face. We had been working through some basic addition flashcards for the last 45 minutes, and by some I mean about 10. 5 minutes of awkward finger counting per problem: it was painful for us both.
"Of course it's hard. You're learning a new language. Learning a new language is always hard." I explain.
He scratches his head. "Huh?"
"Math. Think of it like English, or Chinese, or Turkish. It's just another way of speaking to other people."
He looks at me like I'm crazy. I tear out a fresh sheet of notebook paper and set up a horizontal grid. I sketch a rough circle in the leftmost box, point to it, and ask him what it is.
"A circle." he responds.
"Right. So in English, we say circle. I write 'circle' in the second box. "How do you say this in Turkish?"
"Uhh...yu-ah-rruj."
"Okay..so in Turkish it's yooo-ahhh-rruj." Billy giggles as I struggle with the word. I add my phonetic interpretation to the third box, and then begin writing the Chinese character for circle in the fourth box.
"What is that?" Billy asks, leaning forward in his chair for a closer look.
"This is Chinese for circle. This character is pronounced: yuan."
"Wow cool!" Billy picks up his pencil and tries to copy the character.
"Yep. Now watch this." I write the mathematical equation for a circle in the last box. "Do you know what this says?"
"X-two plus y-two equals 1!" he proclaims. His attempt is valiant. I laugh out loud.
"It says circle. This is how we say 'circle' in math--in the language of math. You read it like this: x-squared plus y-squared equals 1."
"Did Einstein create this? My dad says Einstein was the smartest guy in the world."
"Well, he didn't really create this. But if you showed this to him, he would know that it says circle. He spoke math."
"Can I speak math?"
"Yes, you can speak some math, but you still have a lot more words to learn."
brilliant. I am going to enjoy this with my Saturday breakfast.
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