Artichoke

Every generation emerges from pre-existence into a flurry of colors, shapes, lines and textures. Generations that came before made sense of the world in their own ways and use fully formed infrastructures to influence the cultures and behaviors of the next. Through each iteration, we land somewhere only slightly different. Yet each adjacent generation is programmed with its own set of experiences and views, making the next emergence seem like it’s landing somewhere entirely new.

For a child experiencing life for the first time, the number 7 is a bent line that comes after 6, a rounder shape that looks like a pregnant bug with bad posture. As for me, 7 has become a lucky number because it represents a collision of coincidences and memory. In my family, everyone’s birthday either lands on the 7th or the 7th month. And, it’s the same number on Ferran Torres’ jersey as I watched him score the stunning goal that won Spain the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

To an educator or parent, the number seven can become a symbol of deep frustration when a child fails to grasp a concept they’ve seen over and over. But a better question here is, does anyone actually know what numbers are? Regardless, numbers are required because of our overly data and metric driven world. Even though our society attaches an unnatural amount of meaning to these symbols, we must learn them.

From my experience, learning is the process of understanding the best part: the heart of things. In the case of decoding numbers, it helps to kickstart the gears by studying its origins and importance. 

Numbers are, at their root, ancient partial scripts designed for mathematical data. Unlike full scripts, like written or spoken language, partial scripts don’t allow us to fully express ourselves. It’s old and unintuitive, yet each generation has had to overcome this hurdle. 

On the flip side, numbers are important because without them; modern society, technology, and science could not exist. Numbers are the fundamental foundation of how we measure, organize, and understand the universe. 

Most educators and parents forget or never learned the primal reasons why certain concepts exist and why we needed to learn them in the first place. This typically leads us to rely on familiarity or follow textbooks like a manual. When we do not consider the origins and importance of what we are learning, we isolate knowledge from the bigger picture. 

A 3 or 4 year old learning numbers for the first time is unable to comprehend the entirety of its origins and importance. But we can meet them where they are and extrapolate what they can absorb, creating their foundational building blocks. From what I see, numbers consist of ellipses, lines, and curves forming unique symbols. Symbols are universal because it’s something you look at and immediately understand. One way to start in this case is bridging the gap between numbers and the visual symbols/logos they already understand.

I don’t think knowledge should be simply acquired, rather, it is a series of foundational building blocks stacked sequentially until information and insights from diverse areas become interconnected. I believe the learning approach is what differentiates people who are watered to become a living thing from people who are programmed like computers.

So, what can a child extrapolate at a young age from numbers? It depends on the child. What I have observed is children who exemplify quick and early understanding end up moving onto the next subject/level too soon, or don’t consider the connection of knowledge to its bigger picture in the future. Children who exemplify slow and late understanding are held back and eventually come to understand things equal to their peers, or I have seen dire situations where the child moves on without understanding anything. When you zoom out and look at other stakeholders involved, parents and educators either praise the child’s malleable mind or crumble to insecurity and anxiety when the child seems to fall behind. Both create psychological blockers for the child that prevent them from learning and experiencing life on a deeper level.

In the midst of the mess of learning something new, I think it’s important to differentiate a subject’s origins and importance from its requirements. Just because you fulfill the requirements doesn’t mean you actually understand it. Learning should be less standardized and compartmentalized, and more like a narrative that connects to our natural compulsions and the physical world we inhabit. 

Meeting my students where they are has shaped my teaching philosophy. Leaving my own set of experiences and views to meet them where they are either sparks memories of my own early struggles or challenges me to think critically about the sequence of events that led them to where they are in this current moment.

When I finally get a peek at life through their eyes, I can set relevant context to creatively introduce new concepts in an engaging and natural way. Every time, I end up enriching my own library of knowledge as we figure things out together.

Learning together across generations reveals the true nature of things and the absurdities our society prioritizes and enforces. My teaching approach is to create sturdier foundations and flexible frameworks that can be scaled fluidly to real-world experiences and beyond.