Why Riddles?

This past school year some Math Mas­ters and I met week­ly to solve a sin­gle rid­dle or prob­lem togeth­er. This is how it worked: 

1. Math Mas­ters received a week­ly email which con­tained a sin­gle rid­dle or math problem
2. Math Mas­ters solved the rid­dle at home over the week­end, or on Mon­day morning
3. Math Mas­ters met to share how they solved the problem

It was sim­ple. It was quick. It was impor­tant. Why? 

Because the act of solv­ing one sim­ple prob­lem forces us to grow our think­ing skills. The chal­lenge of then describ­ing how you solved the prob­lem builds our com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. Think­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing, these are our goals for a sol­id dialec­tic edu­ca­tion. We solve a sim­ple rid­dle know­ing that we are stronger hav­ing com­plet­ed the challenge.