All Grown Up

I have no kids of my own...so I have no idea if the following analogy is at all correct, but I am going to make it anyways.

I have taught Geometry since I first started teaching.  This year is my 6th year teaching it...I can't believe that I've taught Geometry for longer than I attended high school myself!  Every year, I have added to or taken away from the curriculum.  I have tried new things.  Coming into this year, I was finally ready to make some big jumps because 1) I am now so comfortable with the material I can actually try significant new things and 2) with the move to common core, there is more flexibility with the pacing of the course and more reason to make changes.  I have never had fewer than three periods of Geometry out of the five periods I teach, and two years I even taught four Geometry classes and one Honors Geometry class.  The point I am trying to make is...Geometry has become "my baby."

This is why this year is going to be so strange.  Due to life being unpredictable, I have found myself with a new baby...AP Stats.  I loved taking this course as a student, and have been hoping to teach it, but suddenly I am teaching not just the one section I expected to teach, but three!  For the first time in 6 years, my Geometry classes are the minority.  Suddenly, my attention has shifted to AP Stats which, like a newborn, requires so much of my attention.

Part of me is sad to loosen the reins on Geometry and all the plans I had for it (I am still going to try new things, just...not as many...), but I feel like it's the older child...getting a little more independent and requiring a little less of my attention.  Because I have this new baby, I just have to be okay with not being as involved with all the big changes I wanted to happen in Geometry.

Meanwhile, I am buckling down for sleepless nights and building up a curriculum that's new to me.  But I do LOVE this new baby.  AP Stats was the first math class I remember really loving.  I am excited to see what comes out of this year.  And even though this was unexpected, I really think this experience will make me a better teacher, especially because I have a great mentor.  I am looking forward to watching this new baby grow in the way I've watched my Geometry curriculum and teaching practice grow.

I am also looking forward to still being able to try new things here and there with Geometry, even though I know I can't give it the same attention I had hoped to.

Funny how we can become attached to the subjects/curriculum we teach.  But at the end of the day, change can be great.

Another Sports Analogy: Softball and Math...

I’m currently sitting here icing a welt on my chin and wondering, “What the heck did I get myself into?” 

About a month ago, when a friend asked me if I wanted to play on his coed softball team, I thought, “Sure, that sounds fun!”  I enjoy recreational sports and I’m usually okay at them, so even though I haven’t played softball since high school P.E., I thought with a little practice it would be fun.

I was a bit nervous since I hadn’t caught a softball for over ten years, so I got my friends together to do a little practice hitting and catching.  And then…the fear hit.  I was TERRIBLE.  I found myself scared of the ball and completely unable to catch a single thing coming towards me.  As someone who likes to think of myself as athletic, it was embarrassing.

But those of you who know me know I don’t like to half-ass things.  When I’m in it, I’m in it.  So for the past month I have been catching almost daily…and I’ve improved…sort of.  I know the analogies for sports and academics have been beaten to death, but as I’ve practiced hard, failed repeatedly, and progressed tiny bit by tiny bit, I began to make a connection between my experience and the experiences my kids go through every day when they walk into my classroom.

As a teacher, I look at my kids and think, “If they only tried a little harder, they’d get it!  It’s not THAT hard!”  But I have to admit, when I got clocked in the face for the third or fourth time today with a grounder that I should have caught, but didn’t, part of me was ready to throw down my mitt, cry, and quit. 

If there’s one thing that trying something new and difficult has given me, it’s empathy.  I understand a little bit why the kids who don’t get it the second or third time it’s explained to them, don’t necessarily want to try a fourth or fifth time, and while I have no easy solutions for how to motivate the kids who don’t have a solid math foundation or a natural grasp of the material, I think that empathy will make me a more understanding, more patient, and hopefully, a more encouraging teacher.

This realization comes at a perfect time for me, as I am working to revamp a Geometry curriculum that I’ve taught for 4 years.  To be honest, last year I could see myself being short with students when they asked questions I thought ought to be obvious.  Now that I’ve been humbled a bit, maybe I’ll be able to see their questions through their eyes rather than my “expert” view.

I think it would be worthwhile for every teacher to periodically try something new, especially something that doesn’t come naturally to them.  It has been a good experience for me, and I hope it’ll translate into my teaching.

As for softball, I’m still working on it...I want to be able to tell my kids this year that I kept trying...Hey, three weeks ago I wouldn’t have gotten hit in the face because I wouldn’t have been anywhere near the ball, right? =P  I think the thing I need to work on most is just having fun and doing my best…my first game is this week…wish me luck!

Math and Creativity Are NOT Mutually Exclusive

I heard something on the radio this morning that really bothered me.  The DJ was talking about how a certain level of noise promotes creative thinking.  The conclusion: You should have this radio station on while doing stuff because it'll help you be creative.  But then, she tacked on the phrase, "Unless you're doing math or bills.  Don't want to be too creative there."

Um...WHAT?!?

It's funny because one of the problems most of my students have when it comes to math (and thinking back, the problem I had and still struggle with) is CREATIVITY.

Math has the misfortune of being a discipline in which there are many postulates, algorithms, and procedural skills that must be mastered to fully grasp a lot of the more abstract concepts.  Because of this, students (and many adults) have come to see it as a subject that's all about "plugging-and-chugging."  But at the core of the subject, math is NOT about mindlessly using a set of rules to figure out what x is.  It IS about CREATIVE problem solving (including the creative thought that led us to understand why a lot of the rules we use work).  How many of you would tell a kid they don't need creativity in problem solving?  If that's what we're telling our kids, we're in trouble.  

Now you may think, "Sure people doing really abstract math and making new mathematical/engineering discoveries may be using some creative problem solving, but for the most part, all the math my kids are learning is old stuff.  You don't need creativity for that."  And that is precisely the mentality my students have.  This is why some of my students, know all the rules, but then when I present them with a novel problem that uses those rules, they freeze up and inevitably whine, "But Ms. J, you never showed us how to do that!!!"  Even if I've just modified a problem slightly so that it has one more or one less step, students often can't apply the skills they used in one problem to this slightly different problem.  They lack the creativity to face new situations.

Additionally, by the time students get to high school level math, there are almost ALWAYS different ways of doing the same problem.  Both people who loved high school math and hated high school math always remind me how they either loved it or hated it because "there's only ONE right answer!"  (or at least there are often a finite set of answers).  At the high school level, this is mostly true IF all you care about is the final answer.  But how many times have I seen a kid get the right answer while making multiple errors along the way that somehow cancelled each other out?  Or kids that guess the right answer?  Or on the flip side, how many kids have I seen who clearly have a deep understanding of the concept the entire way, but make one calculation error and find themselves with the wrong answer?  I'm not one of those people who advocate that the right answer isn't important, but I am sure that HOW you arrive at the right answer is JUST as important.  And like I said, there's usually more than ONE right way to arrive there.

One of the things I truly regret as a public school teacher is that we are expected to teach so many skills, that I rarely have time to do things like explore all the ways kids can solve a single problem.  So many times, when I go over homework on the board kids will say things like, "I got the right answer, but I did it differently."  Ideally, that would be the moment where I say, "Come up and show us."  But I must guiltily admit, that I usually look at the clock and say, "Oh, well as long as your steps seem okay, it's probably correct too," and then I move on.

Anyways, my point was, creativity and math are not mutually exclusive.  I suppose the idea that they are comes from classrooms (including my own) where kids are only taught to plug-and-chug.  My challenge as a teacher, how to get rid of that misconception...

Extra Credit

I just got an email from a kid asking me if there's any way she can raise her grade other than by making up a test. "Like extra credit".

For some background info, for the past year and a half, I've been testing out a method of testing that is like benchmarks. I have split each semester into about 15-20 concepts and students get scored on each concept individually. Students have unlimited opportunities to raise their grade by retaking concepts (however, after awhile, they start having to take concept tests outside of class...on their own time because there wouldn't be enough time to test them on all concepts during class time). I take the higher score, but in order to get 100% for a concept they must show me they can do the concept twice.

Essentially a student who doesn't do well the first time on a test, could end up getting 100% on all their tests if they worked hard enough.


...which is why it irritated me so much to be asked if she can raise her grade other than by taking concept tests. Really? You haven't done half the work. I'm giving you a get out of jail free card when it comes to tests, but you don't want to do it. But you want extra credit? Uh...it's called EXTRA credit. You can't get extra credit unless you get regular credit first.

Assigning Homework

Theorem: The longer the homework "looks," the more whining there will be.

For example:

p. 102 #1-15 (Total of 15 questions) Won't get much whining

BUT

p. 105

#2-6 even

#7-10 all

#13-17 odd

#21, 22, 25

(Total of 13 questions) Will get complaints galore...even if you deliberately split up the assignment to have FEWER questions.

Scenario of the day:

Today I assigned

#2-12 even

#13-15 all

#16-22 even

#29-34 all

and I had a girl whine: "36 questions!!! Oh my gosh that's so much!"

my response: "uhh...the numbers are all between 2 and 34...and I didn't even assign all the problems between 2 and 34...How'd you get 36?"

girl: oh...

Then, I had two separate students count how many questions there actually are and both counted incorrectly...><>

English Learners

I spent two hours today trudging through Geometry homework with one of my EL students after school. I had to explain each of the instructions for each section and re-explain my entire lecture from today and re-explain vocabulary that we've learned and been using for a month and teach words that have nothing to do with Geometry, but were necessary for the student to understand what I was talking about. I say "trudging" because it was a slow process, not because it wasn't enjoyable. I really like tutoring after school, especially when the students are motivated to learn, but this case made me realize how hard it is for EL students. The homework should only have taken 30 minutes.

This year, I have a bunch of EL students. Most of them are really motivated, but still failing my class. They try, but some of the stuff in Geometry is so hard to explain even to someone who speaks English fluently that to someone who is still learning English, it must be complete gibberish. I imagine myself trying to learn Mutivariable Calculus in Spanish. It would not be pretty.

Looking for more good strategies...

How can you go too fast when you haven't even taught anything yet?

So...I was called in by one of the counselors only to be informed that several students want to switch out of my class because "I'm going too fast."

I think my first reaction when I heard this was, "How can you go to fast when you haven't covered anything yet?"

Usually, I'm pretty open to comments like this because there are times when I step back and think, "okay, I am losing a bunch of kids, time to slow down."

However, I was really irritated this time for a couple reasons.

1) No kids told me they thought I was going too fast. Yes, I realize kids are scared their first week and may not feel comfortable going up to a teacher they don't know. Fine. BUT there is a parent complaining to the counselors that they think I'm going too fast. Uh...hello? Shouldn't this parent be coming to me FIRST? Now it's MY responsibility to contact the parent about a complaint they made to the counseling office without first trying to talk to me?

2) We haven't even covered anything! I really don't know how I can possibly be going too fast when I purposely decided to spend 1 day doing introductions and 3 days on the first section of the book! We've literally only covered ONE section! According to the pacing guide, we were supposed to have covered the first three sections of the book this week. However, due to crazy random meetings, not getting books day 1, and shuffling classes AND due to the fact that based on past experience I KNOW kids struggle with the first chapter, I decided to screw the pacing guide and spend 3 days on one section instead of 1 section per day. I think the fact that I put extra thought into slowing the chapter down made me especially frustrated that I'm actually getting complaints that I'm going too fast.

I mean, seriously? We've covered one section that talks about points, lines and planes. If we go any slower it will literally take the entire quarter to get through chapter 1 and by the end of the year we'll probably only have covered chapters 1-4...we have 12 chapters in the book! I'm all for slowing things down when my class isn't understanding, but there's a limit to how slow I can go. I went through STEP, I KNOW it's not all about JUST covering the material, but at the same time, you can't call it a year long Geometry course if you've only taught 1/4 of the material for a year long Geometry course.