Given the time to answer related questions that we did know, we were able to build up to answers that were in the ballpark area of accuracy. Taking time with a problem, asking questions that get to information that we do have, and building on that information helps in liberating the knowing person within. We are smart, not foolish, WE feel engaged, not embarrassed. And, as we get to know what we know, we become more mathematically literate. John Muir I am a writer and a long-time admirer of such writing gurus as Donald Murray, Donald Graves, Nancie Atwell, and Linda Reif.
Process is the way.
Good writing comes to be through process. More importantly, good writers come to be a through process. I am a believer in the writing process and was excited to see process stressed in Frederick Stevenson's book, Exploratory Problems in Mathematics . In out Numeracy class, I have had the experience of being on a few mathematical excursions. One journey that I enjoyed had to do with building rectangles out of squares.