When Words Are Worse Than Sticks & Stones

Words will never hurt me, huh?

Sometimes that can be true. If someone calls me a geek, I'll just agree with them. If someone tells me something I know is untrue, big deal. It's all well and good to say we should know who we are and be confident enough that name-calling doesn't hurt us. But words hold a particular danger. They have a tendency to become more than just words.

I've talked about it before, how words have power and saying you're teasing doesn't make it okay. It's continued to be an issue in varying ways in my classroom.

On a regular basis, a student will tell me something like, "Guess what—Girl X (sitting right there) made out with Boy Y last weekend." First, I don't care. Second, I'm pretty sure it isn't true. And what does the girl do? Smack his arm playfully, act shocked, and say, "I did not! Stop it!" ... with a smile.

In other words, encourage him to keep saying such things.

After years of getting the attention he wants from "joking" about girls being "easy," what else is he going to think he can get away with?

I say when a guy (or anyone) is a jerk, call him out on it. Shut him down. Don't give him what he wants.

On a related note, a student has spent most of this year calling himself and his friends a particular made-up word. "Miss Lewis, I can't do this—I'm a _____. _____'s don't do math."

(Mostly this has had "Stop trying to make 'fetch' happen" running in my head all year.)

But then some of the friends let it slip that this name for themselves was a portmanteau of two words, one of which is 'pimp.'

I am not okay with this. I know the word has come to have certain pop-culture meanings (i.e., pimp my ride), but as a noun, in the context of a group of boys calling themselves this, I'm not okay with it.

So I'm calling them out on it. I'm asking them if they know what a pimp actually is. (We're in a sheltered enough community that some kids actually don't know.) Then I'm asking if they know how a real pimp views women. Once that's clear, I ask if they understand now why I don't want to hear anything more about that made-up word in my classroom.

So far, they've understood, but I haven't really seen the main instigators yet. (Just started having these little talks on Friday.) We'll see if I actually have any success keeping the word out of my classroom. And better yet, convincing these kids that it's not such a great thing, whether in my classroom or not.

I suspect the originator will argue with me and say my least favorite sentence: "It's okay, Miss Lewis."

I truly worry about someone who so constantly tries to insist something's okay when I tell him to his face that it's not.

I'll keep trying.

Less than the Best Can Be AMAZING

The third quarter of the school year just ended for me. Predictably, I spent much of last week staying very late after school with kids desperate to get their grade up at the last minute. If they're willing to do the work, I'm willing to put in the extra time.

A few different groups of kids come in. There are the kids who've been failing since the beginning of the YEAR, and when they find out they've just gotten it up to a D, they break out in the Hallelujah Chorus. There's a similar group who get it up to a B from a C, say, "That's awesome!" and carry on with their lives. Both groups could've been a whole grade higher if they'd just applied themselves more earlier.

There are also kids I've been working with a little longer than the past week. They get it from a D up to a B, and want to know if they can get it any higher at the last minute. In those cases, I have to try to convince them that their B is awesome, because I've already bent as much as I could to help them.

Then ... there are the A-minuses.

Some A-minuses are easy to deal with. They're one percent from an A, and one of my usual culprits (i.e., retake a quiz) is easily enough to bump them over.

But others are tougher. These are students who may not get math easily, so they work their tails off to get that A-minus. They should be SO PROUD of that A-minus. A line I heard more than once last week:

"It's not good enough for my dad/mom/both parents. I'll be in so much trouble."

Sure, some of these kids might just be using the "blame the parents" line to get me to feel bad for them and help them nudge it up to an A. But I've met some of the parents at Parent Teacher Conferences, and I suspect those kids are telling the truth.

I get that parents want their kids to reach their utmost potential. I get that some kids slack off (those Bs that could've easily been As) and need motivation/pressure from home to get it in gear. I get that there's pressure for getting into a good college.

I also get that if a kid works really hard, and the result of that hard work is an A-minus, that A-minus should be celebrated. It's not "less than perfect." It's an amazing accomplishment.

The whole idea of grading has issues. I try to be as fair as possible, but there's still an almost arbitrary nature about it. Should grades reflect effort, actual mathematical understanding, or a combination of both? If a combination, in what proportion? What earns an A in one class may only be enough for a B in another.

It sucks.

I hope some parents will help it suck a little less by acknowledging when less than the "best" is more than good enough.

Why Do We Do "Pointless" Things? (Hint: They're Not)

The other day, an English teacher at my school emailed the faculty with the link to this piece in the New York Times about literacy (or lack thereof) in Mexico. It makes me want to yell at someone, hit someone, and just scream and cry at the same time.

Here's part of what set me to tearing my hair out:

A few years back, I spoke with the education secretary of my home state, Nuevo León, about reading in schools. He looked at me, not understanding what I wanted. “In school, children are taught to read,” he said. “Yes,” I replied, “but they don’t read.” I explained the difference between knowing how to read and actually reading, between deciphering street signs and accessing the literary canon. He wondered what the point of the students’ reading “Don Quixote” was. He said we needed to teach them to read the newspaper.

Because if they read thought-provoking novels, they won't be able to read the newspaper? We should limit them to only achieving the baseline?

Seriously?

And then this:

When my daughter was 15, her literature teacher banished all fiction from her classroom. “We’re going to read history and biology textbooks,” she said, “because that way you’ll read and learn at the same time.”

I'm all for using literacy in the content areas, but throwing out fiction in literature class in favor of textbooks?

There's learning to read, which is generally what happens in elementary school. Then kids transition to reading to learn, which is what we're doing when we read textbooks or essays. We take the knowledge someone else has and absorb it by reading.

Then there's what I'd call reading to create knowledge. I'd say that's what happens when we read fiction. We can make our own discoveries about human nature, about ourselves, our own understandings about the world. The job of a novelist—as I see it—is not to teach but to explore. The reader explores with us, yet may not discover the same things or arrive at the same destination. That's why it's amazing.

This idea that we should only learn things that we'll definitely, absolutely use in a concrete, practical way mystifies me. As I mentioned a month ago, it's certainly turned up in my classroom. While I don't hear students ask what the point of reading novels is (maybe the English teachers get that from the kids who don't like reading—I have to threaten to take books away from kids who'd rather read than do math), I get it about almost everything else we want them to learn.

My school just sent out a survey last week, and one of the items was to vote on whether we want to institute a mandatory free-reading time next year. Twenty minutes a day, three days a week. No matter the class, everyone will spend those twenty minutes reading, including the teachers, administrators, everyone.

I haven't had a chance to ask the other math teachers what they think of it. Or the science, art, PE, music, history, and tech teachers.

My vote: Absolutely, yes, without question.

Because the only pointless thing is limiting ourselves to the concrete little nothings. What kind of life is that?

Something is Usually Better Than Nothing

I'm back after a week off from blogging. Last week was mostly spent getting ready for Parent-Teacher Conference, which meant getting tests graded before then. Approximately two hundred of them. Afterwards, I decided some basic test-taking advice was in order. Nothing beats preparation and true understanding, but in the spirit of "something is better than nothing," these tips could certainly inch scores up a few percentage points.

Read the Instructions
I think teachers have been trying to get all students to do this since written language was invented. Yet some students persist in ignoring them. Thus perfectly capable people lose points because they only gave half of what the problem was looking for.

Use Common Sense
Even if you don't remember how to do a particular problem, you can at least apply common sense and avoid some obviously wrong tactics. If a problem asks for a distance, don't give me coordinates for a point. If it asks for an angle, don't tell me a line. If you're supposed to justify steps for solving an algebra equation, don't use geometry postulates and definitions.

Give Me Something ... Anything
It's true that if you write random numbers and such for every question, you're not going to get any credit for it. But by and large, students who at least attempted something got at least a point for showing a tiny bit of understanding. And that's more than a student who left pretty much everything blank will get. (A student who thought he didn't know anything but tried anyway actually did about as well as the class average.)

Take Advantage of Advantages
It continues to boggle my mind that I can give a review with problems mirroring what's on the test and make the test open-note, yet some students still do miserably. But I know at least part of it. They didn't bring their notes, or they didn't take notes in the first place. So they're automatically at a disadvantage.

The Last Minute is Too Late
I had a student who was frustrated when she got her test back. "I thought I did so well! I even studied!" Her version of studying was coming in after school the day before the test and saying, "Teach me everything." As in, the whole chapter we'd been studying for the past 3-4 weeks. I did a quick overview of each section, but there was no way she was going to meaningfully absorb it all in a single afternoon. Still, she probably did better than she would've if she hadn't come in at all.

Hopefully I can get some of these messages through before the next test.

Does It Matter If You Ever Use It, Specifically?

"When are we ever going to use this?"

Every math teacher's probably heard this at least once, and during some units, at least once a day. (There were years where I never heard it. How I long to go back to teaching that way. But I digress...)

Here's the answer I've taken to giving my students. It's three-part.

First, you may think right now that you won't use this specific math concept, or any math other than basic percent calculations with money. You may think you know what career you'll go into, and it's not one that involves math even a tiny bit. But when I was your age, I said the very last thing I would be was a teacher. When I passed my AP Calculus exam so my general math requirements for college were taken care of, I said, "Yes! I never have to take math again!"

Moral #1: It doesn't hurt to keep your options open. The more you learn—in all areas—the more doors you have available to you in the future.

Second, no, most of you will never have to do a geometric proof after finishing high school. You may never factor another quadratic equation after that, either, or sketch another box-and-whisker plot. But how often in life do you need to bench-press a hundred-pound barbell? Rarely if ever? So, why do so many people do weight training? To strengthen muscles so they will be able to use them in various other ways when needed.

Moral #2: Math builds up a part of your brain that might otherwise atrophy. Logical reasoning skills are always useful, and just like Chris Hemsworth's biceps, they don't magically appear from nowhere.

Third, why are you asking this in the first place? Are you really concerned with whether this is something you're going to use specifically in your everyday life? I'm pretty sure if you isolate specific tasks in most of your other classes, you'll find they don't mirror the activities of most adults. (I promise I haven't written a five-paragraph essay since high school.) I think you're really asking because I'm presenting you with something that isn't instantly easy for you. Your instinct, therefore, is to avoid something that requires effort unless you can see a direct need for doing it.

Moral #3: There is value in struggling. Many things are only worth the effort they require, making easy things pretty worthless. As for the direct need for doing it, see Moral #2.

This is a little ranty, but there's been a silver lining to these conversations lately. I rarely get through more than a sentence or two of one of my reasons before another student in the class pipes up with why they think it's important for them to learn the concept, even if it isn't obviously applicable to "real life."

Bless those long-sighted teenagers.

P.S. To be fair, I also have some students who ask the same question, but in a different way. They sincerely want to know the applications of a particular mathematical concept, because they like to see the bigger picture, to get an idea of how it's all connected. And that's always a question I'm happy to answer.

Age is Relative

I already knew our perception of age is relative. When you're five, a 16-year-old is practically as old as your parents. When you're thirty, that same 16-year-old may seem like barely more than a tiny child.

I also knew age differences are relative. An eight-year difference is huge between a 12-year-old and a 20-year-old. But between people who are 72 and 80? Not so much.

Here's a new one I just noticed, though. The context and timing of when I met a person affects how I think of their relative age from then on. A 24-year-old I met fairly recently will fall into my mental category of "around my age." (I know they're younger than I am. I said "around.") They're definitely adults.

Then there are the people I taught my first year. They're all around 24 now. But when I taught them—when I met them—they were 8th graders. (That means they were 13- to 14-year-olds.) Those are forever stuck in my category of "definitely younger than I am."

It doesn't mean I treat them like kids when I see them now. On the contrary, I've reconnected with a couple and definitely see them as adults I can treat as equals. But they are younger.

Similarly, people who were already adults when I met them as a little kid are solidly "older." But I could meet someone that same age—say, pushing 50—right now and they still might fall into the "around my age" category.

It's all about context.

Not like it's a big deal, but one of the weird things about perception.

Lynn Phillips should be happy. This means she's forever young. At least to me.

Kids, Don't Apologize for Making Me Do My Job

The other day, my ninth graders were working on a review assignment. Mostly independent, or working through with friends, while I circulated to help out.

These were mostly things we'd learned between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so it was a little tricky to remember some of the concepts. Not a problem. That was the point of reviewing.

In more than one class, a student or two got to the fourth or fifth question they'd asked me and prefaced with this:

"Sorry."

Sorry to bother me? Sorry I had to weave through rearranged desks to get to them? Sorry they had so many questions?

Well, at least one said it was the last one. "Sorry, I have a lot of questions."

Mind-boggling, from my perspective.

I guess there are teachers who prefer that their students work in silence while the teacher sits at their desk and does their own thing. And okay, I admit, there are days when I'm exhausted and sitting down sounds really nice.

But like I said to my students ... "What are you apologizing for? Why do you think I'm here?"

Helping students is what makes teaching fun. Seeing them piece things together until they understand. It's certainly not about hearing myself lecture from the front of the room.

If you have kids, make sure they know they should never feel like they have to apologize for asking a teacher to do her job.

To Get Kids' Attention, Sometimes You Fast-Forward

A simple fact of life is that sometimes you have to learn basic, not-so-exciting stuff before you can move on to the really cool stuff. It's certainly true in math class. I have to get my students used to handling variables and exponents (basics of algebra) before I can teach them cool stuff like revolving functions around an axis and finding the volume of the solid formed.

What? I totally thought that was the coolest thing ever when I was in calculus.

But just because students aren't ready to dive into something yet doesn't mean I can't give them a sneak preview of things to come.

My classes recently did some activities with graphing calculators. Mostly stuff that looked like this:

Hi, we're linear equations, and we're a little boring.

While they were thrilled at using the calculators instead of graphing by hand, it wasn't all that exciting. In several classes, I put something like this on the projector while they were all working on their assignment:

Flowers! Using math! So pretty!

Trust me, even the most macho teenage boys think it's mind-blowing that you can make flowers using equations.

They're not going to learn rose curves this year. It's either next year or the year after (I need to check) that they'll cover polar functions. But kids who really wanted to know, I gave them a quick overview of how the polar graphing system works.

It got their attention, and got them asking, "What else can we do with graphs?"

And when they're asking questions, I'm happy.

Just Because They're Behind Doesn't Mean You Have to Keep Them There

Math teachers in my department have had a significant challenge this year. As part of implementing the new core standards, nearly all students at each grade level have been placed in the same math class. (The main exceptions are the accelerated classes, which account for 20-30 students in each grade, 7th-9th.)

This means some kids have had to learn material at a condensed rate, while others have had to endure a ton of review to start with.

We're nearly halfway through the year, and I can't count how many times I've heard that it doesn't work, that we need to get the "low" kids back in a class of their own. For instance, the 9th graders who took Pre-Algebra last year and are now in class with mostly kids who already passed Algebra 1.

I understand where they're coming from. Truly. I see students in my class who haven't quite grasped solving for X yet (simple linear equations), and we're doing exponential functions and recursive sequences now. I have plenty of students bombing tests and quizzes.

But part of me says that the way we've been doing things only perpetuates the problem. These kids are behind grade level in math, and putting them in a slower or repeat math class will only put them further behind.

Then again, does this way just set them up for failure? Some seem to think so.

Something happened the other day that makes me think that may not be true. One of those "shoved into the fast lane" kids came in after school. He has the supplemental "math lab" period that many of these kids do, to give them more time and support to learn concepts, yet still hadn't been doing too well.

He said, "Miss Lewis, can you help me with this Chapter 5 and 6 stuff? I need to retake that test, but I just don't get it."

(He also apologized, asked if it wasn't too much trouble, etc. I'm thinking, "Dude, what do you think I'm here for?")

We started at the beginning of Chapter 5 (inequalities) and I wrote a few examples on the whiteboard. We talked about the process, and I got him working through them himself. (He mentioned it makes sense when I explain it, but then it crumbles when he tries on his own.) Moved through that and on to Chapter 6 (systems of equations).

He picked it up quick.

He said, "Now it seems so easy."

I've seen this before. I had students at the deaf school who couldn't reliably solve simple equations when they were all the way in Algebra 2. I kept pushing them forward, kept supporting and reviewing and reinforcing. When I taught them Calculus, they still had to work at it, but they had some serious math skills.

We could've said, "They can't solve basic equations. They need to repeat this course." We chose not to.

When we don't make falling (or staying) behind an option, and when we give the right support, they can catch up. But there's a key.

That kid came in after school to work on math instead of going to the basketball game. The kids need to be willing to put in the effort.

The best we can do is try to convince them that the effort will be worth it. Saying they're destined for "low" math classes doesn't seem to do that job.

What do you think?

Mathematical Constipation

Have you ever had some kind of information you were trying to take in, but your brain just clenched up and would NOT let it in?

Yeah, I think I'm going to create some interesting visuals in this post.

I have students who go through this all the time. They've decided they don't get math, so they won't get math. Sometimes it's because someone (even a previous math teacher) told them they couldn't.

Excuse me. Must calm down the rage.

Other times, the mental block is self-inflicted. I have one particular student who spends so much time and energy declaring she doesn't get it and complaining about how hard it is, her brain forms a rubber wall my words bounce right off of.

Once I get her to slow down, take a breath, and listen, she gets it fine. I'm trying to get her to stop "clenching up" ... to relax and believe that even if she doesn't get it instantly, she will get it eventually.

Sometimes the old, trite sayings are true. Try this one on:

If you think you can, or you think you can't, you're probably right.

Habits are hard to break, though. Getting students to loosen up their brain cells isn't easy. Building confidence in people who are at a stage of life where they're hormonally inclined to beat up on themselves is ... well, not impossible, but there are days where it almost feels that way.

I'm not into blowing sunshine at kids. I'm not going to tell them they're a math genius when they're not. I will tell them honestly that math doesn't come easily to them, and that's okay, because they CAN get it. They just have to let themselves. And put in a little work (or a lot).

Anyone have other ideas on getting this through to kids?

How Does a Math Teacher Tell a Kid How to Write?

I know, it's Mathematical Monday and this is only loosely mathematical, but it's the question on my mind at the moment.

I like showing my students that people don't (and shouldn't) fit into neat little pigeonholes. I like encouraging them to be multifaceted and be their entire selves in my math classes. But there's a drawback. Kind of.

As my students find out about me being an author, a few will ask me to read something they wrote.

That's cool, in theory. At my last school, we were such a small, tight community that it wasn't really a problem. But now, I find myself unsure how to respond.

After I read it, what do I say?

"That's great! Keep at it."

"I like how you describe the forest. Just watch your run-on sentences."

"Great start. Here are some things you might consider to tighten the narration and give us a stronger point-of-view."

Do I just give general encouragement? A tip or two? Or deeper feedback? Sometimes I just don't know, because I'm not the English teacher.

If I were the English teacher, I'd know what kinds of things we'd already discussed in class. The things kids want to show me aren't always for class assignments (some are actually doing NaNoWriMo at the direction of our librarian—which is awesome). But when it is an assignment, maybe there's something specific they're focusing on. As the math teacher, I have no idea.

Perhaps I'm worrying too much. With so many students, it's hard for me to get to know individuals well enough to know what kind of feedback they want/are ready for. Not like my last school, where I had super-tiny classes and often taught specific students for up to four or five years.

If anyone out there is an English teacher, can you answer this question? If you had a novel-writing math teacher in your school, how could she best support your students' writing efforts, without undermining any methods you're using in class?

Grades Aren't Given—They're Earned

"Ugh, Mr. Peabody gave me a D-plus."

"Miss Lewis, you should just give me an A."

These are among the more annoying statements I hear in my classroom, and it's a particular word that sets me off.

GIVE.

A lot of students have this attitude of teachers giving grades. One student said a teacher ruined their sibling's high school graduation because of the bad grade a teacher gave that sibling in ninth grade. (It meant not qualifying to wear the fancy gold cord with the graduation regalia.)

What? Really?

Okay, I'm sure there are teachers out there who are spiteful and mean and evil. I'm even more sure there are teachers who are really difficult to learn from.

But by and large (and certainly in my case, I hope), teachers don't give grades. Students earn them. I just do the accounting, verifying what they've earned.

Part of me hates that I have to grade at all. I like looking over student work to see what they understand, but I hate assigning a numerical value to it, figuring out what all those numerical values together mean and assigning a letter to that.

The students who think I give grades are part of the reason we have to use them. They only care about that letter on the report card, and in their minds (much of the time), it's arbitrary. If I could rely on every student to learn for the sake of learning, and to commit to doing the work necessary, there'd be no need for grades.

In a perfect world ... maybe someday.

For now, I'll keep with the response I've been using.

"Miss Lewis, you should just give me an A."

"Okay, I will ... as soon as you earn it."

If You Need Help, THEN TAKE IT!

I started something new last week. After I finish the lesson portion of class and it's time to start on the homework, I have the kids move around. Those who feel like they've totally got it, ready to rock head to the back and work quietly. Those who are still feeling a little (or a lot) fuzzy come to the front, and I work with that smaller group on a few select problems from the homework.

The first day I did it was interesting. My A1 class had several takers who were like, "Dude, yes, help!" Most other classes, I had to twist some arms to get anyone to join in.

Second time around, though, more people joined in. I think some kids were like, "Uh, yeah, that actually looks helpful. Might be a good idea."

It's nice, because in those smaller groups, the struggling kids are more likely to ask questions, stop me when they don't understand. I'm liking it. I think I'll stick with it.

Still, some kids who I know really ought to join in are heading to the back and working with their friends instead. That'd be fine if their friends were helping them understand, but based on the daily quiz results and homework scores, it's more likely their friends are breezing through the assignment and distracting them with random chatter instead.

It makes me mad at the struggling kids for not prioritizing. It makes me mad at their friends for not recognizing how much harder they're making it.

I mean, I get it. Social pressure and all ... not wanting to "look stupid." I wish they'd notice that several popular kids are joining the extra-help group. Then again, an outward self-confidence often coincides with teen popularity. (Comes with its own problems, often under the surface, but that's another post.)

I've only been through it two times with each class so far. I could force it, telling specific kids they have to come to the front. I'd rather not. For now, I give a strongly worded suggestion that if they didn't get the homework done, struggled on the daily quiz, or got a bad grade last quarter, they really ought to join us.

Hopefully the more we do it, the less stigmatized kids will feel.

One Term Down, Three to Go

First quarter ended last Friday at my school. Naturally, the past two weeks have been filled with kids desperate to get their F to a passing grade ... or their A-minus to an A. And in order to keep on top of the late work, make-up work, and occasional piece of extra credit, I set aside the quizzes that won't count until second quarter.

This means now I have large stacks of quizzes to grade. I knew this would happen. I was aware of the consequences for my decision.

Still ... it kinda sucks.

It's okay, though. I think at least a few kids figured out that desperately trying to raise their grade at the last minute is a lot more work than just keeping up through the term. As we start the new term, I'll try to get the message through to a few more.

Now that I've got my feet under me, I'm also hoping to keep things a little more organized from here.

Here's hoping.

Parental Priorities

This one's not exactly about math. It's kind of about math, but more education in general.

I'm not one to judge right and wrong ways of parenting. A lot of things have to depend on the individual child's needs, the family's background and values, etc. But I have some observations about different types of parents.

There are parents who apologize profusely for their kids missing school for legitimate reasons, like medical issues. Then there are those who check their kids out of class to go get smoothies.

It's not like either extreme is always great or always terrible. Sometimes the kids who miss for doctor's appointments aren't great about getting caught up on what they miss, and sometimes the smoothie-getting kids are.

Still, I wonder what message the smoothie-run parents are trying to send. That they're a cool parent? That sometimes you have to give yourself a mental-health break? (I can agree with that on occasion.)

What message are the kids getting? Like I said, those kids are often okay with making up what they miss. They're usually kids who clearly believe school is important, at least to some degree. But what about other students, who know why their classmate misses a class or two in the middle of the day? What does it say to them about where their priorities belong?

I don't know. I do know that with math in particular, if you miss a component or two and don't catch it up, you risk being very lost on concepts that follow. If you don't solidify basic equation solving, for instance, you'll have a very hard time with most other topics in algebra.

Most parents do the best they can, especially considering the bull-headedness of some teenagers. Some teens already understand the importance of their education, even the parts that don't immediately seem relevant. Others take a while to figure that out.

I just hope parents aren't delaying that understanding.

Catching Your Glitches

We all make mistakes. Ideally, we learn from the mistake and don't make it again. Realistically, there's a certain type of mistake that we make over and over again. I'll refer to that as a glitch.

Some glitches we're aware of. I have plenty of students who see "three squared" and automatically think the answer's six. But they know they have that tendency, so they catch themselves and say nine before I say anything.

Other glitches sneak around, leaving us oblivious until someone else points them out. Sometimes they turn into the first kind after they've been pointed out. But sometimes they stay rooted, refusing to be corrected.

Students who continue to combine unlike terms no matter how often it's marked wrong. Or who say X plus X is X-squared.

It's not just in math, I'm sure. We fail to shift from second to third gear properly with our manual transmission. We mix up "lay" and "lie" or "affect" and "effect."

With the math, at least, I suspect part of why the glitches keep happening is because the student doesn't understand the foundation of why it's a mistake. Attempting to memorize arbitrary rules without understanding their basis is rarely effective.

Unfortunately, students are often so used to thinking of math as a matter of memorizing arbitrary rules, they don't shift into looking for meaning. At least, not easily. All I can do is try to open their eyes to the hows and whys behind the what-to-dos.

The Power of "I Think I Can"

I have several students who struggle with math. That's okay. Perfectly normal. My job is to work with them and help them improve anyway.

By the time they get to me, these struggling students have often come to the conclusion that they can't do math, period. So a big part of my job is to undo that damage.

Not. Easy.

I'm not a magician, so it doesn't always work. But if I can find one thing they're successful with, reinforce it, and find another ... sometimes that sets off a chain reaction. They think maybe they can do a few things in math. They're a little more willing to try, a little more patient with their own mistakes.

They stop saying, "I can't." Instead, they ask questions.

And that can build momentum that'll take them far, long after they leave my class.

Other times, the barrier remains. They've given up. They refuse to believe. (So I try a little harder, try other ways. Jury's out on whether it works in a lot of cases.)

How often in our own lives do we let "I can't" become self-fulfilling? Not that saying, "I can," instantly makes all possible ... but it certainly doesn't hurt as a first step.

What helps you get past that, to begin to believe it might be possible?

And when the larger obstacles come, what helps you keep going?

What Your Math Teacher Probably Didn't Tell You

First off, this isn't about the ubiquitous question every math teacher faces: "When are we ever gonna use this?" (The answer: You may not use an individual skill from class. Then again, you might. Few of us end up doing exactly what we thought we would as kids. More importantly, while learning the skills, you're developing the problem-solving, critical-thinking part of your brain, and THAT you will always need.)

With that out of the way, here's what it is about. Sometimes math teachers or textbooks make us do things in an overly demanding way, or using arbitrary rules. It's not always the times students think. There are good reasons for doing things the long way before learning shortcuts.

Here's one example where I think we get away from the spirit of mathematics. "Put your answer in the form of a fraction unless there are decimals in the original problem." Um, okay. Why?

What if I have a problem involving money, using only whole numbers initially, but the answer isn't a whole number? It only makes sense to give that answer in a decimal. That's an obvious case, but what about regular bare-numbers equations? What's so wrong with saying 0.5 instead of 1/2? They're equivalent.

So I've gone for a rule that's a little tougher. It means I have to watch for multiple correct answers when I grade work, and it means students actually have to think a little extra. I want the exact answer, not approximations, except when (a) the instructions say to round to a specific place value or (b) the context dictates an approximation is the only way it makes sense.

The reason? That's how answers get used in the real world. You use the form of the number that makes the most sense for the situation.

Kids need to know how to think, how to reason, how to work something out. When they get used to memorizing arbitrary rules ("Do it this way because that's how the teacher said to do it"), they don't delve in for deeper understanding.

That's what I think, anyway. Are there other rules your math teachers made you follow that didn't seem necessary to you?

So, You Want Me to Undermine My Colleagues, or What?

We had our first parent-teacher conference this past week. Overall, a great experience. I love the chance to talk one-on-one with students' parents. They see what I'm all about, and I get new insight to the kids I teach.

The last encounter of the night was a little strange, though. It wasn't a parent of one of my students. It was the parent of another teacher's student, in the grade below the one I teach.

She was concerned about the teacher her child has (but I didn't entirely get why). She was concerned about the new standards. (She's not the only one, but guess what—I kinda like them.) She said she'd talked to the principal before school started, and then again that night. He'd pointed me out to her (I'm not sure why).

Bottom line, I have no idea what this mother wanted from me. Just hoping that I'll have the same class assignment next year and will get her child? Just wanting to vent and have someone tell her they understand?

Did she want me to say, "You heard right. I'm awesome. Sorry my colleague sucks."

On what planet would I ever do that?

On what planet would it ever be acceptable for anyone to do this?

That's my gut reaction. On the other hand, I understand how frustrated parents can be when a teacher isn't working for their student. There often isn't much they can do about it, and I really know the kind of impact a bad (or good) math teacher in particular can have on a kid.

On the other other hand (the third one, right?), I've already been dealing with teacher reputations a ton this year. I'm the "new" teacher, so kids who didn't want the other option (whether by past experience or by reputation) transferred to me just for that. The "other option" is not a bad teacher, nor a bad person. We plan our units together. As far as I know, we don't teach that differently.

Try telling that to the people who figured even an unknown quantity had to be better.

Then again, I agree that sometimes certain personalities don't gel in a great way, so one teacher might be more effective with certain types of kids than another.

But the end effect is that my classes are all bigger than the others in the grade.

*sigh*

Is there a solution to any of this? Probably not, other than to do what I plan on doing ... continuing to do the best job I can in my classroom, and maintain my professionalism at all times.

I'm not going to cut down good, hard-working teachers. I hope no one else would do so to me, either.

Teachers Making Do, Like It or Not

We're a few weeks into the school year, and I admit, I'm not entirely teaching as I'd like to.

I'm not teaching badly (I don't think), but I'm doing things pretty traditionally. The circumstances added up.

I didn't find out exactly what I was teaching until just before school started.

We don't have textbooks yet (supposed to finally arrive this week).

My classes average 38 students each.

More importantly, due to the way our math lab classes for struggling students work, the other 9th grade teacher and I need to stay in lock-step with each other. The same sections covered on the same day, the same homework assignments given.

I'm still free to teach the material any way I want to. But there's no time for that kind of planning. Not with all the grading that has to be done. And not with counselors still letting students transfer from one teacher to the other.

In the end, though, I feel like I'm making excuses. I could spend every hour outside of school developing my own curriculum (or at least modifying the one I've been given). But what about writer-me? What about having free time to keep my sanity intact?

Selfishness or self-preservation? Maybe a little of both.

Despite these reservations, I think I'm off to a good start this year. A few things need tweaks and adjustments. The kids are learning, regardless of how I feel about the style of instruction.

I'll see what I can do moving forward, and if nothing else, make sure I'm ready to tackle next year more thoroughly.