Mini Connectors

Mak­ing con­nec­tions is a very human activ­i­ty. Set­ting aside our own per­son­al con­nec­tions of fam­i­ly, friends, and com­mu­ni­ties, we see that we also make con­nec­tions out­side of our per­son­al rela­tion­ships. We observe pat­terns and sim­i­lar­i­ties in nature and con­nect the ones that make sense to us. This God-giv­en desire to order and sort like objects is a reminder of our cre­ation man­date from the gar­den, and nev­er goes away. Even high school stu­dents want to con­nect things. We know in our head that alge­bra and geom­e­try are both high school math class­es, but we feel that they are dif­fer­ent. How are they con­nect­ed? Why are they connected?

This doubt in our minds find rest when we dive into the world of math­e­mat­ics and dis­cov­er the dis­cov­er­ers. When we see that alge­bra can be explained with geom­e­try, we are excit­ed to see the con­nec­tion, but then won­der why we study alge­bra first. If geom­e­try was dis­cov­ered first, then why do we mod­erns start with algebra?

These ques­tions are good and they show that our stu­dents are think­ing more about their math learn­ing than most. I want to answer them, but I want them to find the beau­ty and glo­ry in the pro­gres­sion of how math­e­mat­ics is learned now. So I ask them to make a con­nec­tion. How can you express the truth of the pythagore­an the­o­rem with­out using the vari­ables? Would you use words, pic­tures, or both? How could you make it clear­er? As most alge­bra stu­dents know, a graph is a pic­ture of what’s hap­pen­ing behind the alge­bra, but it’s not exact. Once a stu­dent sees how hard it is to express geom­e­try truths in eng­lish, he begins to under­stand his need to learn the lan­guage of Alge­bra. This gap fuels our cre­ative minds to explore a world that we may have ignored before. Thus we come full cir­cle as con­nec­tors and image bear­ers of the one true Connector.