Math Drawings: Good Stuff for Teachers

Mary originally created the Math Drawings to capture the imaginations of reluctant learners. It was a way to present an opportunity for those students -- who never seceded at anything academic -- to finally succeed at something. Since Mary believes that success builds on success, she surmised that this success could be the catalyst that ignites those students’ passion for the course. Going into to this project, she knew students loved to draw because she had been confiscating surreptitious art work -- created at inappropriate times in class -- for years. So, Math Drawings seemed to be a natural step boost enthusiasm for the course. The very first lesson, “Tin Cans,” proved her right. It was a smashing success. Quickly word spread until, all her students wanted to work with her Math Drawings. Soon Mary was forced to add a more advanced supplement to each drawing,-- which she called “Differentiation,”-- to challenge the older or more accomplished students.

Mary originally created the Math Drawings to capture the imaginations of reluctant learners. It was a way to present an opportunity for those students -- who never seceded at anything academic -- to finally succeed at something. Since Mary believes that success builds on success, she surmised that this success could be the catalyst that ignites those students’ passion for the course. Going into to this project, she knew students loved to draw because she had been confiscating surreptitious art work -- created at inappropriate times in class -- for years. So, Math Drawings seemed to be a natural step boost enthusiasm for the course. The very first lesson, “Tin Cans,” proved her right. It was a smashing success. Quickly word spread until, all her students wanted to work with her Math Drawings. Soon Mary was forced to add a more advanced supplement to each drawing,-- which she called “Differentiation,”-- to challenge the older or more accomplished students. This latest edition of the book contains five drawings with their respective differentiations. The titles are, “Tin Cans,” “City by the Sea,” “Roman Arches,” “Country Road,” and the latest addition , “Eagle,” taken with permission from the work of artist, Marilyn Grame. Each drawing is created in as many as 30 illustrated steps, with the most current line in each step highlighted. Also, the caption for each illustrated step is laced with the vocabulary that forms the math lesson.

Math Drawings creator, Mary Smale, has been a math and art instructor in the Los Angeles area for more than 35 years. She was also featured on the popular television show Homework Hotline (on KLCS, a PBS station in Los Angeles) where she donned funny costumes and presented math as it may have been experienced by weird or wonderful characters from history, literature, and movies. Such notables as Julius Caesar’s mother-in-law, actor Jackie Chan’s grandmother, Jack’s mother from “Jack and the Beanstalk,” a fading rock star, a stressed out telemarketer, a goofy geologist, an inept caterer, a frustrated teacher, and whistlers mother, from the famous portrait by James Whistler, were among her most popular characters. But audience response soared when ever she taught with her Math Drawings - - so much so that eventually her fellow teachers urged her to compile all of the drawings and instructions into this book. Mary Smale currently conducts teacher-training workshops in the use of “Math Drawings” and teaches Honors Algebra and Algebra Readiness to eighth grade students at a middle school in California’s San Fernando Valley.