Areas of Interest: Low Numerical Maths Teacher

Although I have never had any trouble accepting my low Numerical score in general (I wouldn't want my work to be about numbers, and my half-year score - scaled up! - in the NZ equivalent of Maths A-Level was 10.5%*), it didn't quite explain why I happily do complex sums in my head on quite a regular basis, or even choose to set up quite complex spreadsheets on occasion.

Penny dropped when I had a group of primary teachers recently, and found the Maths Specialist had scores like mine - High Mechanical, Low Numerical. Listening to him explain how he stayed (reasonably) motivated towards maths and numeracy in spite of his low Numerical score, I realised I was listening to someone describing things in Mechanical (how things work) terms. Not only did that make sense of my own surprising forays into mental and structural maths, but also illuminated the journey I made from 10.5% mid-year to something in the mid 80s a few months later. Mr Bishop, my maths master who was enlisted to give me extra tuition, asked some searching questions and realised that I couldn't understand why we were torturing the poor numbers with calculus. All it took was for him to give me a couple of illustrations where calculus would help us get something done - calculating the volume of bronze required for a ship's propellor is the one I remember, plus a very mechanical approach to follow for each of integration and differentiation and I was away and laughing. Suddenly I couldn't think of anything that was more fun than making this stuff work. Clever J V Bishop, spotting the real issue almost a quarter century before I ever took the Birkman...

* Yes, I know AoI scores aren't about ability, but ability and application do seem to follow high AoI scores, for understandable reasons; 10.5% was definitely overstating my motivation towards maths...

Areas of Interest: Musical

Just an observation - we all build up a repetoire of motivational and behavioural clues which attach to these Areas of Interest. Here's one I have noticed for High Musical.

If you get blankish looks for all the usual stuff about being in control of the soundscape and so on, try out PERFORMANCE. I have certainly found the occasional person who lights up when you ask if the notion of "performance" matters to them. Actually, I am one (although the more usual musical clues apply to me as well). So for example, with my low Persuasive and lowish Social Service AoI scores, running day-long workshops for strangers is potentially not very fulfilling. Why do I get a buzz then? Performance! Someone said to me recently (after admittedly, one of my more manic / dangerously edgy sessions with a wonderfully responsive and very multi-ethnic/national group) "Jon, that was worth coming to just as stand-up..." For me the hard days are the occasional ones where people keep their response guarded. I mean, how can you perform when you can't tell if the audience are with you or not...

Back in the Blog

Decided that even though I don't have the (Activity Need 4) time to get my head together, doing a Birkman Blog once more might be a good idea. Anybody is free to read, if you really want to become a contributor, email jon at elaura dot com (just trying to prevent screenscrapers, folks) - but you need to mean it; last time around I spent hours setting up accounts for folks who never actually blogged...