I have always found mathematics to come naturally to me. Rarely did I find that the approach the teacher used in my classes was ineffective for me. That being said, if I did not understand something, I was not afraid to ask a friend, ask the teacher, or try and figure it out with the help of my textbook. In fact, I remember many instances where I would look forward to math class; it was a class I was confident in, therefore I enjoyed it. In addition, I found pleasure in attempting the difficult problems that always seemed to be at the end of every assigned page. Further to that, I enjoyed helping my classmates learn what seemingly came so easily to me. This was surely the beginnings of my desire to become a teacher. When I explained things to my peers they seemed to understand; when they listened to the teacher lecture, they struggled. At the time, I wondered why that was.
Sometimes I like to tell the cashier or the waitress exactly what the total on the bill will be before it is shown.
I can vividly remember the day in my Grade 4 class when the teacher brought in a brand new box of base 10 blocks. I remember my classmates asking her, "What are those?" and her response, "I'm not really sure, they just arrived today." Interestingly, the only time we saw those blocks again that year was when we were done our work and we got to build houses out of them. Clearly, our teacher never took the time to 'become really sure' about what they were intended for. None of us, including the teacher, cared nor knew any different.
In university it was the fad for science students to ridicule arts students because of the comparative ease of the coursework involved. I, of course, was a music student and did not find these jokes very funny. I worked hard. Perhaps in a fit of rage - but more likely in an effort to shut my friends up - I enrolled in first year university calculus. I aced it, gloated and bragged, then made math my minor.
My brother and I used to count to 1000.
I have always had an affinity towards music (see the Article), and towards toys which encouraged problem solving, pattern recognition, trial and error, and the like. Gambling interested me; I grew up playing cards. In fact, I could play cards before I could read. I began piano lessons when I was three. I designed my own mazes (see the Visual Project) for fun. Puzzles kept me occupied for hours.
I like math!
Why is all of that important? Two reasons.
The first reason: I like math I am not afraid of it. I am not afraid to talk about it, experiment with it, tackle problems, and most importantly, teach it. I enjoy thinking mathematically, and I understand that my feelings will in some way ultimately rub off on my students. Hopefully my enthusiasm towards the subject will breed positive math feelings among my students. Perhaps they can share the same joy of telling the clerk at the store what the total of the bill will be before the cash register displays it and then watching the clerk's reaction. Or perhaps students will feel the sense of accomplishment associated with solving a puzzle, a brain teaser, or a difficult math problem. Maybe they will count to 1000!
As bright and optimistic as I have been so far, I must admit that the second reason that it is important for me to know that I like math is much more scary. Because math was one of my natural subjects (and certainly not Language Arts and Social Studies), I have never had to search for alternative ways of understanding. Regardless of the way a math lesson was delivered, I usually understood. Manipulatives were not understood by my Grade 4 teacher because she lacked proper training; manipulatives were not understood by me as a Grade 4 student because I did not need the concrete representation to help me understand the more abstract. Although I found the mathematical concepts easy, I never had to deal with struggling through a concept. This means that I lack a fundamental understanding of the frustration that learning math can offer. And that means that I will be more prone to teaching in a fixed style, becoming frustrated when students don't understand, and having a lack of empathy.
It is true, I can do a Rubik's cube. I think that many people view math in the same way they view a Rubik's cube: very difficult with no understanding of how it works. I have realized that in the same way that people view math and a Rubik's cube, so do I view the art of teaching the subject. Indeed at the beginning of my pedagogical math journey I certainly did not understand how the teaching of math worked. The task of teaching math requires a conceptual understanding of the subject and the subjects - the math itself, and the students who you are teaching - and it requires a practical understanding of how the teaching should take place. As I have reflected, read, written, conversed, and thought about the type of math teacher I will be, I have began to assemble the parts of my mathematical Rubik's cube. Teaching is an ongoing process of learning and I am not certain that I will ever have all of my colours on the correct sides, but every move gets me closer. This is especially true when I am cognizant of the fact that I like math and what sort of consequences that will inevitably bring to my teaching.
I put all of the text from my portfolio into a wordle. I think the order of the four biggest words say it best. Students are first, followed by math, then understanding, and finally teaching.
No comments:
Post a Comment