"Is Zero a Number?": Interviews with a Whole Class of Kindergartners
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"Is Zero a Number?": Interviews with a Whole Class of Kindergartners
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Re: "Is Zero a Number?": Interviews with a Whole Class of Kindergartners
#2[dead]
Re: "Is Zero a Number?": Interviews with a Whole Class of Kindergartners
#3What a fascinating article, thank you! I see why we have exams in schools. Some of the kids just seemed to entirely miss what they were taught!
The way kids approach these questions are very telling on how to teach them, and that teaching math in particular is about understanding, not memorization.
Re: "Is Zero a Number?": Interviews with a Whole Class of Kindergartners
#4Haha, this could pass as the results from asking 9th graders.
Re: "Is Zero a Number?": Interviews with a Whole Class of Kindergartners
#5[deleted]
Re: "Is Zero a Number?": Interviews with a Whole Class of Kindergartners
#6I mean philosophically what is a "number" is a hard concept. I don't think any of the children saying 0 is not were really wrong so much as had a different definition of number.
If you asked most adults what a number is, probably many would come up with a definition that didn't include i.
Re: "Is Zero a Number?": Interviews with a Whole Class of Kindergartners
#7People seem to forget that it took us tens of thousands of years to develop maths and a couple thousands more to conceptualize zero (and some time more for negative quantities and infinities).
So in this light this result is absolutely not surprising. In fact, it’s funny to see that the reason the answers changed is basically “because the school told me so”
Re: "Is Zero a Number?": Interviews with a Whole Class of Kindergartners
#8I mean philosophically what is a "number" is a hard concept. I don't think any of the children saying 0 is not were really wrong so much as had a different definition of number. If you asked most adults what a number is, probably many would come up with a definition that didn't include i.
Probably the simplest concept is that they're for counting things, but that doesn't lead to a clear answer as to whether you can count zero things. When you count things, zero has a physical meaning (if you have one apple and give it away, how many apples do you have?), so maybe they should be considering it a number, but not negative numbers until they get a more abstract understanding.
Re: "Is Zero a Number?": Interviews with a Whole Class of Kindergartners
#9[deleted]
Re: "Is Zero a Number?": Interviews with a Whole Class of Kindergartners
#10Try asking if B is a letter or a word. (Pronounce it as 'b', not 'bee', or you'll just make it more confusing.)
Seems a lot of these basic classifications are an early stumbling block. Even if they can count or rattle the whole alphabet, they haven't learned the meaning of the words "word", "letter", or "number" as terminology.
Initially sentences/words/letters/numbers are all just 'sound'. "What's the sound of this?" is equivalent to "Read this."