Everyone loves a good deal, right? I remember when I was a kid, any time my parents wanted to make a specific purchase, they would look at the options and compare prices at different stores. Now, mind you this was before the internet, so that meant actually visiting multiple stores to see the options and then checking the newspaper for sales on the specific item they’d decided on. I wasn’t in on the conversations, of course, so I don’t know if they were trying to stay within a certain budget to keep the finances in check or if this was a result of having parents, my grandparents, who grew up during the Great Depression. Likely, it’s a bit of both with some other factors thrown in there.
Not surprisingly, this practice was passed down to me and for most of my adult life I was obsessed with making sure I got the best deal possible, especially when making large purchases, like appliances and computers. Now that information is readily available on the internet, the process is both easier, in that I don’t have to actually travel to multiple stores, and more difficult, as I now have access to way more options and have to consider things like shipping costs and sometimes additional fees.
So what does all of this have to do with math and with you being a math person? Great question! Thank you for asking.
Comparing anything, whether it’s numbers or characteristics, is a mathematical skill. Obviously, when we compare prices we are dealing with numbers, which are closely related to math. One of the first math skills we are exposed to as young children, though, is comparing characteristics, or attributes, of objects. Meaning, we learn the difference between circles and squares. Triangles and star shapes. We learn to sort objects by color and size. We learn concepts such as bigger than and smaller than and more than and less than. As we get older and learn more about numbers, we begin to compare quantities using greater than and less than and then we extend this to different forms of numbers, including decimals and fractions. When problem solving, we compare what we know to what we are trying to find out and we make decisions about what operations to use and which concepts make sense in the context of the problem.
This comparing extends well beyond math class. We compare the characteristics of people on the playground and abilities of our favorite athletes. We constantly compare what we see in the world to our beliefs about ourselves and others. We compare events in history and vacation experiences. Books we read and movies we see. All of these comparisons help to shape how we view the world and our role in it. And comparing is at its core a mathematical concept.
Let’s get back to the shopping for a moment. How do you decide which washing machine to buy? Maybe you just go for the least expensive model. If so, you use your knowledge of numbers to make the decision. That’s math. Maybe you are looking for certain features. Comparing models to see which ones have the features you are looking for helps you eliminate the options that don’t. You’re sorting the various models by their attributes and you are ranking those attributes by what’s most important to you. That’s all math.
That brings me to the point of this discussion. When you are shopping for anything, from groceries to appliances to clothing, cars, and homes, if you make your decision by comparing any feature…price, color, ingredient, style, location, to name a few…you are using math. And I believe if you use math in any way, that makes you a math person.
The challenge I’m giving you here is to notice how you make decisions the next time you buy something. Are you grabbing the first thing you see or are you making some sort of comparison? When you catch yourself choosing the apple without the bruise or name brand crayons over the cheaper ones, take a moment to appreciate and celebrate the fact that you are using a math skill and remind yourself using math makes you a math person.
Rinse and repeat.
Because it’s the repetition that creates the new pathways in your brain. The new pathways that allow the shift in your mindset to occur, over time, so you start to see yourself as the math person you really are.
So, take the information I’m sharing…the pieces that resonate with you and that you see yourself doing…and start there. Keep finding proof you are doing the math or thinking mathematically and feel that shift.
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