“Poverty: Teaching Mathematics and Social Justice,” by Leah
McCoy presents some great ideas for math lessons. I liked the lesson about
budgeting different income levels, but I also think that it is not very
mathematically advance, for instance, I don’t think I could justify taking the
time to do that in my algebra 2 class, but that it would work well in a middle
school math class. Lessons like these can really bring home the idea that
people use math every day and that it is important. A higher math skill lesson
like the one mentioned later in the text about plotting school district income
and the EOC scores and then fitting a line of best fit is actually something
that I could do in my class.
I also think it can be enlightening for students who do not
live in poverty to see a budget like the on in the article. If I were going to
do something like this in my class though, I would have to set it up
differently. My students already know about living in poverty, and perhaps I
would correlate careers with an income, and then have a variety of incomes to
budget.
I wish I had some revelation from the Middleton, “All
Students Are Motivated: Why it Matters do Understand the Reasons Students Do
What They Do,” article, but I honestly don’t. It followed one student through
her school day, but it basically just told the story of that without much else.
I suppose that I am responsible for inferring that teachers work with children,
and children are much more sensitive than adults, especially to their
environment, peers, and how they perceive actions of adults and other people.
Children are more likely to view actions through an egocentric lens and take
everything personally, and perceive things and directed at them even when they
are not. (i.e. Grace thought she was being punished when the teacher put her in
a different group.) Since we are teaching children we do need to be more
sensitive to some of the things that help them work well and motivate them and
things that make them shut down. Or maybe there was something in that article
that went over my head.
In the 1999 Middleton article I agree that students need a
high degree of success in order to engage in math. I think this is because our
culture does not value math. I hear other people say all the time, mostly
adults, “I’m just not a math person,” “I don’t get math,” “ I can’t do math.”
It is accepted as ok and normal to feel that way about math. But I have never
heard anyone say that they don’t get history, or they just can’t read. Math is
more difficult that a lot of subjects, and there is usually a right answer,
verses in a few other subjects where there is a broader spectrum of right and
sort of right answers. Math requires a lot of work, so if students feel like
they are not likely to succeed, they feel more comfortable failing because so
many people around them have given up and turned out fine. Giving up on math is
low risk, giving up on reading is very high risk.
It also seems obvious that the challenge level cannot be
overwhelming or too high or too low for engagement.
I don’t know that I agree with the gender stereo typing
about girls in math anymore. I think I had stronger feelings about it when I
was in college (the first time), but in high school it seems less relevant.
Maybe my view is skewed because I am the teacher and not the student in my
class, I can’t really tell, but right now I don’t perceive there to be a
difference.
I do agree that the “Current practice leads students to
develop attitudes that value speed of computation, following the example of the
teacher, and correctness of answers over learning and understanding.” I do want
students to be able to do problems quickly, because that usually means that
they know the material well and don’t have to struggle through deciding what to
do. I do want my students to arrive at the correct answer. Whether or not a
student finds the answer by following my example or not doesn’t bother me. I
see kids taking short cuts or writing things differently, or finding a
different path through a problem and I try to embrace that. However, I really
only see a handful of students getting creative with math and problem solving.
Maybe that is the result of years of drill, or lack of something else. Most of
my students will give up on a problem unless I give them a recipe to follow and
show them a few examples. I am working towards trying to get them to try to
work through problems that they may not have been told how to do, but may be
variations of problems similar to ones they know how to solve. (Maybe that is
my differentiation).
Another point that I found interesting is that “Japanese
students are expected to be more self-motivated than American students. In Japan
over control of tasks by the teacher is minimal, effort is valued over ability,
and determination of interest and success are primarily left up to the
student….teachers in the United States are expected to make instruction
interesting and appealing, and students are less likely to be blamed for
inattention if the topic is personally unappealing.” That makes me wonder what
kind of standards the teachers are held to. When I am planning my lessons I
always have this Knox
County pacing guide and I
am thinking to myself about how I can possible only spend the amount of time
allotted to each subject. I think it’s wonderful to have high standards, but I
would like more freedom, more time to be creative, and less presser about how
my students will be evaluated on the EOC and how I will be evaluated on the
EOC. Really we are forcing students learn things that they don’t really care
about, which is why we are having this motivation problem. Frankly, I think
much of the standards we have for school, especially high school are really not
necessary. Do students really need to take 4 years of college bound math?
Probably not unless they want to go into the sciences or are still unsure about
a career track. Maybe we could incorporate math classes in more practical ways.
The excerpts from “Fires in the Bathroom” included a lot of
questions and statements that would provide important material for teachers to
reflect on. The questions in the beginning probe the teacher to ask themselves
if they have made their expectations clear. I felt like the student quotes were
an accurate reflection attitudes and things that I hear students say.
Teaching by the book, especially in math is really boring,
for the students and for me. One tip that I heard about someone using was that
in work problems that they would change the names in the story to their
students’ names. I tried rewriting some of the story problems in the text and
changed the names and put things in context of our school and students seemed
more open to working out the problems just from that small change, even though
it was something really simple.
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