Christy Hovanetz, Ph.D., is a Senior Policy Fellow for ExcelinEd focusing on school accountability and math policies.
Twenty years ago today, the series finale of Friends aired. More than 52 million viewers tuned in to watch the hour-long culmination of the show—created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman and directed by Kevin S. Bright—that peeked into the lives of six friends living in New York City.
Joey Tribbiani, played by actor Matt LeBlanc, is my favorite Friends character. Joey is the lovable, trusting, positive friend who occasionally exhibits mathematical misunderstandings. For instance:
Joey: Come on, think about it. You’re eighteen. Okay. She’s forty-four. When you’re thirty-six, she’s gonna be eighty-eight.
(Season 3, Episode 18)
Joey: Date of Birth?
(Season 8, Episode 23)
Clifford: November 16, 1968.
Joey: Age?
Clifford: Can’t you figure that out based on my date of birth?
Joey: I’m a doctor Cliff, not a mathematician.
But Joey has occasional flashes of philosophical mathematical brilliance…
Joey: Over the line? You… you… you’re so far past the line that you can’t even see the line! The line is a dot to you!
(Season 4, Episode 7)
However, his math skills truly shine in Season 3 when he decides to build a stand for the mail but ends up constructing a massive entertainment unit with a built-in mail cubby—with a few endearing mishaps along the way.
Anyone who has attempted to build or assemble a piece of furniture knows math and spatial thinking are vital skills for successful completion of a woodworking project. Joey’s project required skills in basic math: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, geometry and algebra. More complex projects use trigonometry to calculate angles and dimensions. Precise measurement also is imperative. Measure twice; cut once.
Perhaps most critical to Joey’s project was spatial thinking.
This National Academies publication* breaks spatial thinking into a combination of three elements: concepts of space, tools of representation, and processes of reasoning.
The report relates accuracy solving various forms of math word problems with spatial abilities.
It suggests teachers recognize that the spatial visualization skills needed to learn geometry have already begun to develop from early childhood through elementary school, Students need proper instruction to build on and make explicit this core knowledge for subsequent learning of formal geometry.
Teachers must know about the development of children’s spatial abilities in general and their specific geometric conceptions and misconceptions to capitalize on students’ strengths and help them overcome their weaknesses.
Spatial thinking is so deeply embedded in our daily lives and thoughts that it can be difficult to disentangle and appreciate. We know it improves through participation in everyday practices.
Joey’s entertainment unit boasts fine Italian craftsmanship and houses their chick, duck and television, it is so big that it partially blocks his and roommate Chandler’s bedroom doors. In the end, Joey reluctantly agrees to sell it for $50. The prospective buyer doesn’t believe the cabinet is large enough to fit a grown man, so Joey personifies spatial awareness, crawling inside to verify his selling point. Unfortunately, the buyer locks him in the unit and steals everything except the entertainment center.
If he wanted to hang on to his belongings, Joey probably should have deployed basic math skills instead of a physical demonstration of spatial awareness, but his trusting character got the better of him—as it often did throughout Friends.
As we work to skill up students for success in school and beyond, it’s important to remember that math isn’t monolithic.
As you build a comprehensive K-8 Math policy in your state, “I’ll be there for you.” Your friends at ExcelinEd have assembled fundamental principles and a comprehensive K-8 math model policy based on findings from National Mathematics Advisory Panel to improve student achievement.
*National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2006. Learning to Think Spatially. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/11019
