Socratic educator Michael Strong with six year old Alana

How are you?

Good, how are you?

I didn't hear you. Are you— can you hear me?

Yep, I can.

I'm still not hearing you. Do you have your mic on?

My, um, headphones.

There, now I can hear you. For some reason I couldn't hear you. So how are you?

Good, how— good, how are you?

And well, um, what was the highlight of your week last week?

Like what I did last week?

Or the best part. What was the best part of your week last week? The best part, like, for like on a random day, anything that you remember that was good?

Drums. For me, I think I thought drums was pretty good.

Drums? In your house?

In my what?

In your house?

No, not in my house. I have a drum class on Thursdays.

Oh, that sounds really cool. What kind of drums?

Well, kind of like rock and roll drums, I guess. Like a real set of drums.

A real set of drums? Like in a real rock and roll band?

But I don't go like with a band or something. I only go with one person.

Okay, but are you kind of doing this thing with your hands all over the place? Wow, I think this sounds really cool. Do you like— so you enjoy it?

I do.

Was this your very first drum class, or you— or have you been doing it for a while?

I've had— I've been doing it for a while.

Okay, well, congrats! I can't wait to see a video of you drumming. Do you have any videos of you drumming yet?

My dad does. I don't think I know anything else.

Okay. Well, I am delighted to hear this. How about school? Anything good happening in school?

Mm. Yeah, so every day after— maybe just Thursday or Fridays, but I don't go on Friday at school. So there's something called Explorations.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm putting on, I think, kind of like some, just like play with my group. It's at the end of the school year. I don't know when it's happening.

A play?

Mm-hmm.

What role do you have? I assume you have a specific role.

I don't really know it yet.

Do you know what the play is about?

Well, I know what it's about, like It's about like, I'll tell you like what it's like doing like right now. So practicing the songs right now.

Are you singing songs as part of your role in the play?

Yeah, we are singing songs, but we're mostly doing the dances.

I see. This is good. So you're drumming and you're singing and dancing in a play. This sounds like you're learning a lot. What would you say, how, is it hard to learn drumming?

Not too hard. All you really need to know is like specific beats and the names of the drums or like how to hold the sticks or like 3 beats.

And is learning drumming similar to learning mathematics or is learning drumming different from learning mathematics?

For me? Kind of different.

What way different? Why is learning drum different?

Well, they're the same. It's both learning, but, um, like mathematics is with numbers and like drums is with like music or something.

But you said that, um, in drumming you had to know the beats. Do you count beats there?

Yeah, actually, so it might be same.

So that part is like math? Mm-hmm. Do you like learning math as much as you like learning drums?

Yes.

Are you still doing addition and subtraction, or have you started multiplication and division in math?

Still, I think, because like I'm still in first grade, so we're not up to that level yet, but right now I'm still doing addition and subtraction.

What's the biggest two numbers you've added?

I don't know.

So when you and I were talking, you did 1,000 plus 1,000, right?

That's the highest number, I think, actually.

Do you remember what 1,000 plus 1,000 equals?

2,000.

There we go. How about 5,000 plus 5,000?

10,000.

How about 10,000 plus 10,000?

20,000.

I think let's— how about we break some records in terms of the biggest numbers you've ever added together, okay?

Okay.

How about 100,000 plus 100,000? 200,000. Is that the biggest number you've ever added together?

Yeah, now.

How about 1 million plus 1 million?

2 million.

Is that the biggest number you've ever added together?

Uh, maybe second, because the last time you did 1 million hundred or something last time.

Do you know, do you know, um, what 500,000 plus 500,000 is?

100,000.

In a way, and that's actually a million. So 500,000 plus 500,000 is a number we call 1 million. Have you ever met 1 million or ever learned about 1 million before?

I've heard of it, but I haven't used it so much.

Okay. I want to relate these numbers to real-world things. So let's see, what kind of real-world things? You probably have at least 10 clothes in your closet, right?

Maybe more than that.

Maybe like 40 or 50?

Yeah. Okay.

And then if you had— wondering about a bowl of spaghetti, how many noodles do you think are in a bowl of spaghetti? Maybe 100 or something? Okay, I'm trying to visualize what 100 noodles would look like. It does sound, you know, you know what I mean by visualizing the 100 noodles?

Excuse me?

You know what I mean by visualizing 100 noodles to try to see if 100 noodles is basically the same as a bowl of noodles?

Not really.

So I want to get a picture in my mind. So I can picture in my mind one piece of spaghetti, right?

Yeah.

And I can picture 2 pieces of spaghetti, and I can picture 3 pieces of spaghetti. I can kind of picture 10 pieces of spaghetti, but it gets kind of hard at 10 pieces. Would you agree that it's hard? It's easier to picture 3 pieces of spaghetti than 10 pieces of spaghetti?

Yeah, definitely.

And so that's why I'm thinking, here's one way we could do it. So do you know what, um, And you're not supposed to know times, but we'll see. Do you know what 10 times 10 equals?

Not really.

Okay, no problem because you're in first grade. 10 times 10 is 100. So 10 plus 10 is 20, plus 10 is 30, plus 10 is 40, plus 10 is 50, plus 10 is 60, plus 10 is 70, plus 10 is 80, plus 10 is 90, plus 10 is 100. That's why we say 10 times 10 equals 100. Does that kind of sort of make sense?

Kind of.

Okay, no problem if you don't completely get it, but I'm still working on this. How do we know if a bowl of spaghetti is about 100 noodles, 100 spaghetti noodles? And so, um, let's see. I think if on a fork— how many noodles do you think you could fit on a fork? Um, do you think 1 noodle, 2 noodles, 3 noodles, 5 noodles? How many spaghetti noodles could you fit on a fork?

8 or 9 or 10.

Okay, I'm willing to believe it, but I bet it would be hard to get 10 noodles on a fork. I bet you could do it, but I think you'd kind of have to kind of twist and jab. Does that sound right? Okay, so if you get 10 noodles on a fork, but it would probably be like a really heavily loaded fork. Does that sound right? So, and probably too much to fit in your mouth. Maybe you could—

oh!

But it would be hard, right? So if 10 noodles— if 10 times 10 is 100, and each forkful of 10 noodles is like a really big mouthful, then does it sound right that a bowl full of noodles could be 10 really big mouthfuls of noodles?

Maybe, yeah.

I'm thinking it's probably going to be a pretty big bowl. I bet if you had a bowl of noodles, I bet if you had, I don't know, how many mouthfuls of noodles do you think are in a bowl of noodles? The kind of bowl of noodles you usually eat. You think it's 10 mouthfuls? Or 20 mouthfuls?

About 50 mouthfuls or 40 or maybe just 20.

Somewhere between 20 and 50? Yeah. But those are probably regular, regular forkfuls of noodles, which are probably not 10 noodles a fork, probably more like 3 or 4. So let's do it that way. Suppose your, your average— you know what an average is?

And like the most likely amount.

Not a bad estimate. That's a pretty good estimate, actually. So yeah, an average is, um, you know, sometimes suppose you sometimes have 4 noodles on your fork and sometimes 3 noodles on your fork, sometimes 4 noodles on your fork. If you counted the 3s and 4s and 5s, maybe occasionally you have 5 noodles and occasionally 1 noodle, then there's a way of looking at the math so that you figure out what the average is, and it kind of is the most likely. So yeah, let's suppose your average noodle— full of noodles is 4 noodles and you have, you said maybe 40 bites of noodles in a bowl, that would be 160 noodles, which is more than 100 actually. But then you also said it might just be 20 noodles, and if it's 4 times 20 is 80. Am I doing too much math too fast for you, or is it okay? It's okay. Okay, so I'm, I'm thinking that yeah, maybe a bowl full of noodles is roughly kind of like, more or less, 100 noodles. So I just, I just wanted to get a sense for, um, and I wanted to get a sense for how big 100 is. So your, your clothes, we have a sense for maybe that's about 40 or something, and bowl of noodles, maybe it's about 100. So that's an experiment maybe you and your, your dad should do, is how many noodles in a bowl of noodles. Um, but what I'm getting at is I bet a million is way bigger number than you've ever, ever, ever encountered. So 100, you know, you might know about 100 noodles. 1,000 is probably a bigger number than you've ever encountered. I'm just getting you to kind of think about numbers in the real world. Does that make sense?

Yes.

Okay. Well, I want to let you go have a wonderful day. So congrats on the drumming. I again look forward to seeing videos of you drumming wildly. And really well. And I look forward to playing with numbers again and other thinking things in the future, okay?

Okay.

All right, have a great day, Alana. Bye-bye.

Bye.