Hello, my friend! If you are new here, welcome. I’m so glad you found me and I hope you find value in what you read here today. If you’ve been here before, welcome back! I am honored you choose to continue this conversation by joining in for another post.
I began the I See Math People podcast just over a year ago…that’s wild to think about…with you in mind. I love challenging you to think about things differently, and here on this stage – both on the podcast and here on the blog – the thing I want you to see differently is yourself. Specifically, your relationship to math, because I believe all it takes to be a math person is to be a person…you’ve got that one covered…and to interact with mathematical ideas…which you do way more often than you think.
In this post, we are continuing our journey through the alphabet with some common math ideas beginning with the letter D. It was a little difficult to narrow down the list for this…I really try to keep each one pretty short…and I think I’ve done it. So, let’s dig in.
Data
The first idea on my list is something we are inundated with day in and day out. We are constantly collecting it and analyzing it and using it to make decisions about how to shape our day and our interactions with others. If you guessed I’m talking about data, a collection of information…you are correct.
{Do you say “daytuh” or “dattuh”? I’ve gone back and forth over the years, and I think I’ve finally settled on consistently pronouncing it “daytuh.” Although, it turns out there’s a third common pronunciation…”dahtuh”…which sounds odd to me, so I think I’ll stick to “daytuh.”}
Data can be numerical, like ages of your friend group, heights of your kid’s basketball team, or daily temperatures, but it doesn’t have to be. We collect, process, and store visual data all the time. It’s how we recognize patterns, notice how many red heads are at the party, and whether or not you can make it through the yellow light before it turns red. We also collect experiential data. If you know which of your friends or co-workers will be on time to a social event or meeting or you know to avoid the food at a particular gas station, you’ve been collecting and analyzing data.
I might be willing to bet you don’t even realize you are participating in data analysis every day. Truth is, you do it almost constantly.
And this makes you a math person.
Decimals
Let’s chat about decimals, shall we? Most people I meet either love fractions or hate them and decimals are the preferred way to deal with numbers that aren’t exactly whole. We express money amounts and percents using decimals and we often say things like “point 5” instead of one-half. Sports stats are often given to us as decimals and, since there are relatively few real life examples of division turning out evenly, most of the outputs on our calculators involve decimals.
I think it’s highly unlikely that a person can go through daily life without encountering decimals in some context. I bet you know what’s coming out of my mouth next…and I’m going to say it anyway.
That makes you a math person.
Division
I mentioned division a moment ago and it’s next on my list of mathematical ideas that begin with D.
I probably don’t need to go into much detail here, but if you’ve ever split a bill with a friend, shared a bag of candy so each person gets the same amount, or figured out how many blocks you need to line the edge of your flower bed, you’ve used division.
Distance
Distance describes how far apart things are. How often do you think about distance?
Traveling, training for a 5K, home runs and touchdown passes are just a few of the ways distance shows up in your life.
It shows up in smaller increments, too, like the space between plants in your garden and how far apart you need to put your kids so they can’t reach each other in the car.
Difference
I’ve saved difference for last today. In math, difference describes the distance between two numbers on a number line and we find this distance, or difference, by subtracting. I’m sure I’ll talk more about subtraction when we get to the letter S, but for now I’m going to focus on where differences show up in your life.
You might use this idea when you are tracking expenses, or recording debits, in a bank account or you might see it in cost comparisons or when determining a profit or loss. When your kids are asking how much longer they have to ride in the car, they are asking the difference between where they are now and where they are going.
Differences show up in situations without numbers, too. In the last post we talked about comparing and contrasting, and categories. When you use these ideas, you are also looking at the ways things are not alike to make your groups. Like when you separate the knives from the spoons in the silverware drawer.
You think about the ideas of division, distance and difference way more often than you realize and that, my friend, makes you a math person.
It’s been so fun having you join in the conversation today! I’m on a mission to change the way the world sees math, and that begins with you. If you found value in this post, if something you read made you pause, or if you suddenly realized the hidden math in something you do every day, now is your chance to join the movement!
How can you help? When you subscribe to, rate, and share the I See Math People podcast or A Pocketful of Pi, more people will see it and the more people who get the message, the more mindsets can begin to shift. That, my friend, is how movements gain momentum.
It means more than you know for you to listen in on this discussion of a few of the mathematical concepts beginning with the letter D. My hope is that you heard something about data, decimals, division, distance, and difference you can relate to and that it made you stop and think about where math shows up for you on a daily basis. Noticing where you interact with math is the first step to shifting your mindset and seeing yourself as the math person you really are.
I’m Jennifer Mason Hardin and everywhere I look I see math people just like you.
