what struck you the most about this school
Answers
Answer:
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Explanation:
Several ideas resonated with me from these chapters. The first is around the power of mistakes. Our learners enter our classrooms with the notion that math is either right or wrong and you must be right to be successful. The “fear of failure” permeates and I feel holds back growth in understanding mathematics. I would agree with Eric that “mistake” might be a misnomer. One definition of mistake is “an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.” I would rather we change that definition which seems negative to me to rather we hit a dead end, a wall and need to change direction. It might not be caused by “poor reasoning” at all but very sound reasoning that didn’t lead to the answer we were seeking. I was struck when I visited the Kennedy Space Center how many “failures” they had before a rocket was successfully launched. And my favorite movie Apollo 13, shows true perseverance with the scene of trying to figure out how many switches could be turned off to have the least amount of power used. The astronaut kept trying and trying several approaches until finally one path was found. When mistakes are honored, perseverance is strengthened. My favorite quote that Patricia Helmuth shared with ANN members was “mistakes are expected, respected, and inspected”. Imagine if every math classroom had this quote posted as learners entered.
A second topic was that of speed, that speed means smart. This is found directly in the tests our learners must face. Everything is timed giving no credence to the importance of thinking through for problem solving. One test, the Accuplacer, is at least untimed which would allow students time to truly think through finding a solution. Unfortunately the test itself is a lot of symbol manipulation but at least students could reason through. Speed is also focused on doing computation quickly which is such a small part of understanding and exploring mathematics. I loved the Fortune 500 most valued skills list. Computational skills were at the top in the 70’s when I first began teaching. Now that ranks near the bottom of the list today.
Lastly what I am most excited by Boaler’s and other’s research is what has been found through cognitive science research. My friend is a Wilson reader trainer and I remember being envious of those in the reading world who had mountains of evidence about how children learn to read but when I looked for articles on how children learn mathematics very little was found. I finally was introduced to David Sousa’s book “How the Brain Learns Mathematics” as my first book of evidence. Now more has been discovered especially around visualizing mathematics and how the brain functions using mathematics. This research I find exciting and hopefully will be further proof why we need to change our practice in the classroom.