Door-2-Math Blog

In the SUFI Master RUMI’s Table talk, there is a passage that can be taken as the backbone of teaching math the Zen Way.  The passage reads:

The Master said there is one thing in this world, which must never be forgotten.  If you were to forget everything else, but were not to forget this, there would be no cause to worry, while if you remembered, performed and attended to everything else, but forgot that one thing, you would in fact have done nothing whatsoever.  It is as if a king had sent you to a country to carry out one special, specific task.  You go to the country and you perform a hundred other tasks, but if you have not performed the task you were sent for, it is as if you have performed nothing at all.  So man has come into the world for a particular task, and that is his purpose.  If he doesn’t perform it, he will have done nothing.

So what does this have to do with teaching Math the Zen Way?
Everything!

In teaching, we let others learn.  We guide.  Teaching math the Zen Way is to realize and recognize that every one has a special purpose in this journey on earth.  This realization and our willingness to honor it will give us, the teachers, the freedom and ease to guide our students to understand math their way, and thus allowing us the joy of watching our knowledge getting passed on to others the Zen Way.

So each time you find yourself getting frustrated teaching math and you’re about to loss your patience, keep this in mind:  Every child is here for a very special purpose.  Math may or may not be it.  Our job as the teacher is to guide him/her toward finding that purpose.  His/her fulfillment of that purpose is fulfillment of his/her life!

The take away point is this: Letting go of your frustration opens up your heart where upon the Zen Way can enter and perform its magic.  Let the water flow through you and carry your knowledge and your wisdom to the one you’re teaching.

Happy Zen Math!!

(c) Feenix Pan, 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Sometimes Johnny says something that you think is outrageous, like “You never spend any time with me!” when you know full well that it is not true. This often comes out in a tense situation like talking about grades, for example. What do you do?

The single most damaging thing that you can say is that “Well that’s not true, I spend a lot of time with you.” The child then shuts down and communication is eroded. It all has to do with validating the child’s reality. Even though the child may be saying something you perceive as totally ridiculous, it is reality in their world. What you can do is validate this reality and get into their world. This happens when some need inside the child is not being addressed. You do not have to agree with it, but validate it and find out what the untended need is. An example might be, “I’m sorry that you feel hurt, is there something that is bothering you?” This is where communication starts again. The child feels validated and will open up and will accept the parent’s help and suggestions more. From then the communication path can go to looking for uniqueness in a child and treasuring it.

Happy Zen Math!!

(c) Feenix Pan 2007 All Rights Reserved.

Asking questions seems such an obvious and easy topic that you may wonder why writes anything about it at all? However, from my interactions with students, I find that this is truly a skill to be learned on the part of both the student and the instructor.

Lets first start with the student. Since the instructor hopefully has a good mastery of math, some things that a student might not know might be so obvious to the instructor that they might not even guess that the student doesn’t know this particular thing. This is where questions come in. Asking a question is like bringing an empty bucket to the teacher and asking the teacher to fill it up. Until a question is asked, the teacher doesn’t know what the student doesn’t know. It is when a question is asked that a teacher knows what a student doesn’t know.

The key challenge for a student to overcome is to be brave when asking questions even when they appear to be “stupid”. Also the student should try to figure out exactly where they are confused at so that they can ask the right question. This is also where teacher can help. At the highest level the teacher not only knows the material, not only knows how to answer questions, but also figures out which questions the student is not asking but needs to ask and answers that question. This is where the teacher starts to act a bit like a mind reader and takes verbal and nonverbal cues from the student in order to help the student further her learning.

(c) Feenix Pan, 2007.  All Rights Reserved.