Teaching is Hard, Criticizing is Easy

A student left my class yesterday to go to the washroom.  A short while later, her friend who had no doubt received a text message, excused herself so she could go to the aid of said student who was having a panic attack.  What precipitated this attack?  Me.

On the fourth day of the semester I was introducing the concept of functions by having students walk the first initial of their name and record the walk as a distance-time graph.  When I called her to the front of the class, I knew she was uncomfortable but I went ahead.  I felt she handled it well and she received spontaneous applause for her accomplishments. 

She did not come back to class.  I followed up the incident with a phone call to her appreciative mother.  Apparently there are other factors but, by her choice, she is no longer in my class.  In fact she is no longer registered in any Math class this year.  Ouch.

This morning I watched a lecture on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g2KjP2a20g by Amanda Ripley, the author of the recently published The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way.  At the end of the video she emphasizes how hard it is to be a teacher.  She goes great lengths to explain that even though her mother was a teacher she really, really did not understand how hard it is to teach; 'fighter pilot hard, CEO hard'.  I concur.

I searched for the video after reading a review of Ripley's book in The Economist, August 17th-23rd 2013.  For her book she interviewed American exchange students in other countries and she examined test results from PISA (Program for International Student Assessment).  According to The Economist article, "Pupils in Finland, Korea, Japan, and Canada consistently score much higher than their peers in Germany, Britain, America and France."  This is not news to me: nor is the fact that the classrooms in the countries that scored the highest are devoid of hi-tech gadgets. 

Although I haven't read The Smartest Kids yet, I like what I see.  Like most people, I tend to absorb ideas that support my beliefs and ignore or dispel of ideas that don't fit with my paradigm. 

There have been a few articles lately of a different bent that I have been busy dispelling. An opinion piece in Mathematics Teacher, August 2013,  argues that differentiation for individual student needs in education is a myth and will continue to be a myth until there exists a sophisticated computer program that can deliver and test concepts for each student as they advance in the curriculum.  The author implies that a machine can do a superior job of assessing students' needs, better any teacher.  (Thankfully the periodical's editorial panel reminds the readers that mathematics is a basic human activity and teaching is a fundamental human activity).  It seems to me that that despite evidence to the contrary, too many teachers share the author's view; the way to catch up to the Asian countries is with more and better technology.  I am also disturbed by the implications that the goal of math class, from elementary school up, is to ensure that students can do calculus.  Mathematics professor Peter Taylor once estimated that 20 of the 1600 first-year calculus students at Queen's University will every use calculus. 

The next article is a little more challenging.  Margaret Wente of The Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/whos-failing-math-the-system/article14112165/ responds to the news that the latest test scores show that elementary school children's math scores are slipping.  She blames misguided educational trends that emphasis critical thinking and calls for 'back-to-basics'.  I quickly dismissed her premise but was curious to see how the public would react to the article.  Ouch.  

Ms. Wente struck a nerve, generating a flood of responses that are hard to ignore.  I read almost 200 of 275 responses, hoping that someone would challenge her ideas.  Almost all praised her views.  Blame was heaped on educational policy makers and teachers.  There were anecdotes  of how high school graduates who couldn't do simple arithmetic to complete a transaction when the electricity failed.  Sentiments expressed of how learning basic math facts like the multiplication table is boring but essential.  It seems many feel that that arithmetic is what mathematics is. 

Today's Margaret Wente column questions the fads and magic beans of educational pseudo-science. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/classroom-fads-and-magic-beans/article14168845/
The article quotes Tom Bennett, the author of Teacher Proof: Why Research in Education Doesn't Always Mean What it Claims; "I suspect that children learn when they are told stuff, and forced in some way to remember it, and practice it".  Ouch again.  Where's the research?  And we know this works because?  It worked in the past? I question how well it ever worked and I question how it could ever work with today's kids and I question how relevant any 'stuff' would be that I could tell students to prepare them for the future.  There are certain 'tried and true' approaches that I am glad we no longer subscribe to; like finding square roots with paper and pencil, corporal punishment, and blood-letting.  We don't need an industrial model of education that churns out human machines for our factories any more.  We need critical thinkers that can question and deal with all the challenges of an ever-changing world. 

I do wish that all my students could do basic math with speed and precision; it would make my job easier.  It bothers me that some can't and I am unsure how to change that.  But instead of trying to teach multiplication to 16 year-olds, I will spend classroom time doing more practical math like questioning the value of electronic stores' service plans and I will spend time on important mathematics such as examining the ramifications of exponential growth.

Parents sometimes bring up the same questions as Ms. Wente.  Are you experimenting on my child with new methods?   The gist of my response is "Every damn day".  I continue to search for more effective ways for my students to learn and I explore new methods to assess their progress.

My job is hard but I will also continue to listen to my critics.  It keeps me thinking critically about what I do and how I do it.