Quadrivium (7-12)

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Welcome to The Quadrivium!

Heated arguments, friendship and betrayal, capture and escape, life and death situations, the rise and fall of empires, forbidden secrets and mystery… all in a humble math class?

When you think of mathematics, do these things first come to mind? Not so much. The fascinating history of math has been utterly decoupled from the subject.

Consider Archimedes and his Ancient Greek Laser Weapons. You read that correctly. Would you like to hear about how he fought off the Romans with his ingenious inventions, which was also boring for him?

Consider the Pythagorean Theorem. Don’t you want to hear about the mass hysteria that followed its discovery, which undid the school Pythagoras sought so hard to build? In spite of his inexplicable phobia of beans?

When you are immersed in history, you gain a new perspective about how and why discoveries were made, and hopefully also some mild entertainment. You can think of this class as an exposé of the Ancient Greeks and their technological advancements. It’s casual math designed to spark an interest in your student to yearn for more.

That’s not to say we won’t be doing any math at all. Indeed, we will be doing a lot of math. However, it won’t be the traditional math with tedious calculations and worksheets. It will feel like entertainment. If this concept is brand new to you, I suggest taking a look at Formal Logic (it’s a recommended prerequisite).

If you want, you could view this as a much more advanced Pre Algebra class, with some history and science components. But now I feel it’s time to address the elephant in the room: What does Quadrivium mean?

The Quadrivium (aka The Four Paths) dates back to classical times in the original schools of mathematics. After one had studied logic, they were then unleashed down these four paths to become the philosopher king or queen:

1. Arithmetic

2. Geometry

3. Harmonics (aka Physics)

4. Astronomy

These will be the topics we will discuss this year, and there are so many stories intertwined with them! One main purpose for this class is to help students become familiar with concepts, names and notation and terminology, famous puzzles, and famous people. That way they will be fully prepared to take future math classes, like they’ll be returning to old friends.

I do not require any math prerequisites. You do not need to have taken Pre Algebra, though it may help if you have. If you’ve forgotten how to multiply, don’t worry about it. What is important is that we will be thinking deeply, which comes with maturity. If you haven’t, I highly recommend taking Formal Logic, especially if you’re not 100% sold on mathematics yet. It’s a lovely prerequisite filled with mind blowing conversations.

One last note: I teach math chronologically, the order it was discovered historically. The consequence of this is sometimes we will be discussing elementary concepts, and sometimes collegiate concepts! My hypothesis is that it makes a lot of sense to begin math visually and slowly get more abstract. Algebra as we know it today was discovered some 600 years after Geometry, and appropriately so. Let us first master Prime Numbers before Factorizing Polynomials, not the other way around. Thank you for bearing with me and my teaching philosophy.

HOMEWORK

I encourage the students to write down what they learned or thought was interesting. That way they can share it with their friends and family and transcripts.

I’ll be passing out super fun puzzles, and they won’t be graded. The aim of the class is to enjoy the math, not to be forced to do it. If it feels like work, then I did something wrong.

CLASS MATERIALS

Paper and Pencil to take notes with.

CURRICULUM 

Coming Soon! In the process of publishing several books with Amazon.

MATERIALS FEE

There is a $10 materials fee, so I can print delightful math history graphic novels to give to the students throughout the school year.

TEACHER CONTACT 

Jonathan Pappas

[email protected]

208-999-1841