What a Cracked Pot Taught Me About Learning Maths
A crack appears
Last weekend, I spent three days creating a pot, using the skills that I had developed during the sculpture course. I had a clear idea of what I was trying to achieve – a pot that had the feeling of flow as well as movement like how the sand looks after the sea has gone out with grooves and creases. I was really enjoying working with the clay, seeing my ideas come to life.
However, after taking it home with the idea of finishing it off to make each part smooth, I noticed that a crack had appeared inside the pot. Now, for those of you who don’t know, if there is a crack inside the pot, and it has basically dried, when it is fired in the kiln, it is most likely to get bigger and bigger.
Usually, I would be really annoyed and, for a few moments, I felt disappointed. I had spent hours creating the pot and was excited to see the finished result. It would have been easy to focus only on the crack and forget about everything that I had learnt while making it.
When confidence takes a knock
This got me thinking about how maths feels like for students who really struggle.
Working with students who have dyscalculia and other learning difficulties, often the first things that I do is aim to make them feel at ease and build some confidence – show them that they can do maths. I talk with them about how to be able to do something, we need to practise.
Usually, the first few sessions go really well. The students’ confidence is building and they start believing in themselves.
Then, a new skill is introduced. At first, this feels manageable but at some stage they make a mistake. At this point, a really common feeling is that they want to give up. Rather than recognising that they have been learning and improving and this is just a small setback that is expected, it feels like they will never be able to do maths and all those old feelings of being useless at maths come flooding back.
One mistake doesn't undo progress
Looking at my cracked pot, I could have felt like my students – I know I would have done in the past.
Instead, I learnt from my experience, knowing that I needed to compress the clay more as I worked with it
Having Another Go
Instead, I decided to have another go – I made the pot using a different technique and continued to practise my vision of the moving sand.
It’s been a few weeks since I made the pot. The pot came out of the first firing with no crack in sight, so I decided to glaze it and put it back into the kiln for its second firing.
When I saw the finished pot, I noticed immediately that the crack had reappeared. Rather than feeling disappointed, it reminded me that progress is rarely a straight line. Sometimes, when learning maths, we find ways to work around things that we don’t fully understand. The problem seems to disappear for a while, but later on it often reappears, just like the crack in my pot.
Mistakes, setbacks and unexpected problems are all part of learning. The important thing is not whether everything goes perfectly, but whether we are willing to keep going when things don’t go to plan and take the time to strengthen the foundations that need a little more work.
Sometimes, continuing after a setback requires more than perseverance. Sometimes it requires us to ask for help.
In my next article, I share how a simple conversation about a bag of clay almost stopped me from trying something new and what it taught me about asking questions, seeking support and learning from others.