Beyond Numbers in Middle School Algebra
How Algebra is taught in a Waldorf School
Chalkboard drawing of the Father of Algebra.
Mohammed ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, considered the "father of algebra," was a mathematician who worked in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad during the 800s CE. He could translate between Ancient Greek and Indian, allowing him to compile the findings of both, and wrote his own texts on algebra, geometry, astronomy, and geography. Al-Khwarizmi wrote the first known book on algebra around 825 CE, which was called Hisab Al-Jabr w’Al-Muqabala, meaning “the Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing." Al-jabr was later latinized as “Algebra,” meaning “reuniting broken parts” -- such as bone setting or moving an algebraic term from one side to another to balance an equation.
At Marin Waldorf School, students learn new concepts in context, including the history of a subject. This brings the subject alive, giving them an understanding how these ideas evolved, and how actual humans grappled with challenging concepts.
Particularly in mathematics, it's important for students to see math as an interconnected web of ideas, rather than sets of rules and algorithms to be memorized. Learning math as a living subject that is always unfolding makes it accessible and connects the student to the subject.
—Julia McIlroy, middle school math teacher
Math Education at Marin Waldorf School
Through a multidisciplinary, multilayered approach to math, starting at the earliest ages, students at Marin Waldorf School learn to see the joy and beauty in numbers, approach math work from many perspectives, and eventually build up to the conceptual ideas that fuel advanced-level math in middle school.
“Watching the ease and joy of a preschool or kindergarten Waldorf classroom, it’s easy to assume that there is no set curriculum and teachers just let ‘kids be kids.’ True, you won’t find children at desks completing math worksheets. And yet there is a carefully considered scope and sequence of learning starting in preschool,” writes Julia McIlroy in her article “Early Childhood and Math.”
