During adolescent most children go though a stage that I call whimsy. It went unnoticed by me until I first witnessed it when playing with my grandchildren. I wonder what percentage of grade school and middle school teachers fail to realize that their students go though the same whimsical stage of life.
I recently watched a 6th grade math teacher ask a student, “What is your conjecture?” The student quickly answered the question. [I had a major problem with the word: conjecture. She could have asked, “What is your guess?”] The only conjecture that has any creditability in mathematics is one made by a Ph.D. mathematician. Not one made by a 6th grade math student who is likely in their whimsical state of life. I recall Charles M. making a helicopter in my shed and painting it with my spray cans. He was 11 at the time. He had it built, painted and doing a test flight within an hour. We should be teaching at their level and realize that their life likely can be described with one word: whimsy.
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