Zero > 1, 2, 3...?

Today, Ms. Casper shared a picture book with us at the end of math class. It was called Zero, and was written by Kathryn Otoshi.

The message to the story was that we are wrong to assume that zero has no value, and that without zero our entire counting system would be completely different. I don't know about you, but I'm quite glad that we don't use a base-9 system for counting!

I remember being a young teacher and having the chance to meet the legendary constructivist math guru, John Van De Walle. He insisted, to the point of being offensive to some teachers in attendance, that we had no concept of the importance of zero to our number system. Throughout the course of an afternoon, he proved that he was right, and it was an important lesson to learn.