Maya numerals article response

I think the Taxicab Numbers story and Major's paper show that numbers can have various associations for different people. I thought it was interesting that her paper explained the frequency of those associations through linguistics and the reality that we use words to identify those numbers so different parts of a brain form connections. It is interesting to me the history of how different cultures "named" the numbers. This topic also made me think about the book Flatland and how shapes are given personality which is similar to this. In that book, the culture of the day is reflected in how women are only lines and seen as having not very much dimension of variance. I think everyone has some associations with certain numbers even if it is through math, it is still connecting different parts of our brain. 

I'm not sure I would introduce the idea of numbers having personalities to my class but I may introduce the history of how numbers were named depending on the context. I see the value in students making associations with different numbers and maybe in younger grades, drawing numbers with different personalities might be a great way to build some associations, but I don't think this would be a high school-level activity. 

I wouldn't say numbers have personalities for me but I do have associations with certain numbers or mental images for them. Similarly with the alphabet, days of the week or months, I don't have personalities connected to those but I do have mental images. For example, I always picture the months of the year laid out in a backwards C with sharp corners. January at the top left, May at the top right, August at the bottom right and December at the bottom left. Our brains are fascinating!