My Mom’s Math Lesson: Weaving Education into Braids and Life

A "core memory" from my childhood is getting my hair braided on the weekends to prepare for the week ahead. My mom was responsible for my younger sister and me, and after washing and detangling our hair, she'd ask what style we'd like. She'd ask us how many braids we'd like and what kind of beads we wanted. We'd take the time to look through the bead jar to carefully pick out the beads we wanted to compliment our crowns for the week.

I thought she was being proactive to save time since she had to style two heads, but as an adult, it finally clicked for me. I was chatting with her about this, and I had an "aha" moment: she was teaching us math all along.

She was teaching us about understanding patterns and multiplication. She was not only keeping our little hands busy so we could sit through the styling, but she was keeping our minds engaged in a way that made learning fun!

My braids were a weekly math lesson in disguise, teaching me about patterns and multiplication one bead at a time.

It's this very model that made sense to me as the type of educational style I tried to emulate in my classrooms as an educator and mentor. Now, as a parent, it's this same real-world application that I model for my daughter, Rose. We read letters on signs as we go for walks in our neighborhood, or count the numbers in the hallways of our building.

My mother just retired after over 20 years of teaching service, primarily teaching language for 3rd to 5th grade. Her dedication to the profession and helping children learn and grow have served as a model for my educational style. She was a leader within her school, and I also took a liking to becoming a leader within my communities, studying leadership and advocacy during my master's program. This ties into my goals of creating a community online as I want to share my knowledge with others, just as my mother shared hers with so many others.