Learning is Bridge Building

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Learning math is like trying to cross a wide river.

Some people can naturally jump further than others.

But eventually, everybody, even the smartest kid in the class, they reach a gap where they can’t just jump straight across it on natural ability.

That’s why we build bridges.

And in math, those bridges are prerequisite skills.

The more prerequisites you’ve mastered, the smaller the mental leap to the next concept.

Arithmetic gets you across to algebra.

Algebra gets you across to calculus.

And each new skill gives you a foundation to build that next bridge.

What makes math education effective and efficient is when it builds enough bridges to allow everybody to make the crossing.

This teaser is distilled from the following posts, if you want to dive deeper:

• How Do You Increase a Student’s Ability to Make Mental Leaps?
• Layering: Building Structural Integrity in Knowledge

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