Peaches and Herb

Most dynamic duos just aren't dynamic if one half is missing. Reunited just isn't the same song without both Peaches and Herb. “Who’s on first”, just isn't funny without both Bud and Lou. So math content standards mean nothing if you don’t have process standards to back them up. “The content and process standards should not be viewed as discrete elements but rather should be integrated throughout mathematics instruction (Cathcart, Pothier, Vance, Bezuk 2011)”. We didn’t do much communicating or connecting when I was learning math as a student. That realization hit me like a ton of bricks when my college counselor said I had to take this remedial math class. That sack of bricks was lifted when a college professor said hey go look at that research published by some grad students and write me a summary connecting their math to what you learned in my class. It was relevant and connected to real life…something about how many turtles were affected by human disturbances in a lake. I like turtles, had a eastern painted one named Jennifer as my first pet. You see the process standards say to students, “You gotta learn this stuff but I’m gonna make the method to the math madness so integrated with you as an individual learner it will seem like you were made to love math.”

Segregated not integrated

On occasion I have asked my father who was a teenager during the civil rights movement what it was like for him as a black man. He explained what it was like to go through desegregation and busing. He told me that when you looked at the big picture integration allowed him to see the real world for the first time. As I reflect on learning math when in school I feel like my teachers looked at the subject with the same eyes of a segregationist. Math stood alone. We learned something important in the four phases of problem solving. I think they are still relevant to math instruction today, however that was the only process we ever used. And where was the integration of math to the real world and its experiences. Where were the reasonings and proofs. Math was the subject that was only tolerated if you were problem solving. If ever you wanted to know why it was then treated like the Little Rock 9, that just the way it was and we weren't standing for anything else.

High steaks testing?

My math teachers must have thought the chapter test was the filet mignon of math assessments. A performance based assessment or something creative like that must have been like eating bad sushi to them. We drilled and drilled and drilled some more until the teacher thought we were all ready for the chapter test. Well ready or not the test came anyone and usually with a few entrées of pop quizzes thrown in just to make some of us with weak stomachs feel the acid reflux bubble up in our throats. It also seemed that every chapter test was a deal maker or breaker. It was pass these chapter tests or find yourself washing the dishes in the kitchen to pay for that steak you couldn’t afford. We were all, despite any differences in learning styles we had, seen as steak and potato math students and that’s what we got.

Math in thin air

I live in Denver now and have spent some time in the rarefied air above 14,000 feet as I hiked some of our highest peaks. Thoughts become sluggish and the body follows as you get higher and higher up those ridge lines. The atmosphere is fighting against every fiber of your being and even upon reaching the summit it can be hard to get excited about the accomplishment. I think this is what the atmosphere of my math classes must have been like growing up. Sometimes each step up the mountain is like drudgery and so were those math worksheets or pages, with the “Odd numbered questions only please.” Never did I walk into class and feel the excitement from the teacher that said, “Hey get ready because we are gonna learn today and have fun doing it.” Maybe just maybe if the teacher had come down to watch the honors biology teacher teach a lesson he could have picked up some pointers on bringing excitement, challenge, relevance and fun to learning.

Warrior Math

Warrior Math

I do not remember math. I don’t mean that I am horrible at it or hated it or my dad didn’t like it so I didn’t either. I just mean that math for me throughout school was uneventful. Nothing took place until I took my mathematics course for elementary educators that made me want to become a champion for the subject. I remember science and the passion I had for learning biology or astronomy. I remember AP English and reading classic writers then responding to their works to prepare for the exam. Math I guess I just kind of made my way through without ever finding a spark. I do briefly remember a fondness for trigonometry, you know COS…SIN…TAN. Maybe there was something I thought cool about being able to find out the angle of that shadow cast by the flagpole with only one piece of information. It was kind of like magic with math. I was a Woodlawn Warrior in highschool in relation to football or track and field but not math.