Dear Practicers,

Our brains aren’t very good at thinking about more than one thing at a time. When Peyton Manning throws a pass, he doesn’t think about how he’s throwing the football. He’s thinking about coverages and routes and which receiver is open. If he had to consciously think about what his fingers, hands, and arms were doing, he would never complete a pass. For Peyton Manning, throwing a football is automatic. It’s not automatic because he’s a supernaturally gifted athlete; it’s automatic because he’s spent thousands of hours practicing it.

In fifth grade, we learn to do multi-step processes like long division, adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators, and  multiplying and dividing decimals. Each step of these processes requires a different operation. The only way that we can free our minds up to think about the processes  is if those individual operations are automatic. The only way those operations become automatic is through lots and lots of practice.

Luckily, practicing doesn’t have to be boring. The best way to practice is with games. If you’re having fun and doing math that serves a purpose (even if the only purpose is fun) you’re more likely to remember what you’re practicing. But we also have to be smart about how we practice. And we have to know that we’re practicing  to reach excellence.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck