On Teaching

With 35 days left until the school year starts up, I am starting to slowly, and I mean SLOWLY, mentally transition back into life as an 8th grade math teacher, instead of just life as a single, dog loving, first time home owner who has no idea how to fix anything in her house. But that's a different story... 

As I start thinking about my job and the whirlwind that is the month of August, I can't help but get excited. I really love my job. Isn't that insane? Can you imagine having a job where every morning that you wake up, you look forward to going to work? People ask me all the time, "Why did you become a teacher?" Generally, this question is either prefaced or followed by "You could have done anything" or "You would make so much more money if you had became a [insert any job other than teacher here]". I respond in a few ways. 

1. Smile and nod. Because sometimes that's all you can do. And after a decade in pageants, I am fairly good at it. 

2. Play them this TedTalk because it gives me goose bumps every time.

3. Ask them to read Kahlil Gibran's poem On Teaching in his book The Prophet.

The Prophet is full of all kinds of juicy nuggets of wisdom and inspiring quotes, but his views on teaching perfectly align with the reasons why I became a teacher. 

"No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of our knowledge. 

The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. 

If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind. 

The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding. 

The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it. 

And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither. 

For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man. 

And even as each one of you stands alone in God's knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth." 

- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Stop. Go back. Read it again. No, seriously. Read it again and let it fill your soul with inspiration. A few things that stand out to me:

     "No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of our knowledge. 

How brilliant is this? I so wholeheartedly believe that I am not the sole source of knowledge in the classroom. I don't give knowledge to my students. I don't just simply spew facts at them as they mindlessly receive it. I allow them to discover the knowledge and intelligence that is ALREADY inside of them. No set of standards or curriculum can change that. 

      The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. 

The word love stands out to me here. You have to love children to be a teacher. You have to love them in all their forms, including the horrific 45 minute period after lunch as well as every period on a Friday or before a long break. If you give students love, you give them an invitation to learn. You allow them the safety and security to experience the act of learning, which can be an incredibly vulnerable state of being, especially for English Language Learners. 

      If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind. 

Goosebumps.

      The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding. 

Children learn by doing. They learn by EXPERIENCING. This is what I hope this blog can be about. How do we allow children to experience mathematics?

      The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it. 

      And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither. 

I am not a content deliverer. I became a teacher to inspire. To inspire students to WANT to learn more. To want to come thither.  

      For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man. 

      And even as each one of you stands alone in God's knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth."

 - Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Only 35 days left of summer? How about a mind set shift... Only 35 days until I get the opportunity to go back to one of the most HONORED and IMPORTANT profession in our society. How lucky I am!

Positivity Spreads like Wildfire

In November of 2015 something amazing happened in my 8th grade Algebra class. Something that many viral social media posts and "news" articles stated was impossible and utterly ridiculous. Something that countless friends, casual acquaintances, and even some fellow teachers told me would never happen. 

So what happened? What was this wildly inconceivable event?

I saw students remember and apply a particular solving strategy from elementary school to more challenging secondary content. I know, many of you are shaking your head in disbelief. How is this possible? How could this have happened? Does this mean that Common Core is working? 

Now before you get your anti-Common Core panties in a bunch, let me explain. After I witnessed my genius students in action, I drew this picture (see below) to show the 7th grade teacher in my building what happened in class that day. The solving strategy in this case is called the area model because, in short, it takes a multiplication problem and visually displays the two numbers being multiplied as the side lengths of a rectangle. Then, you can use the fact that length times width equals area to find the product. It comes in handy for problems like the one on the left, where multiplying 24 by 35 in your head is a little tricky. It's much easier to split the two factors into "friendly numbers" and then add the partial products together. For elementary students, this process is very visual and helps to build their conceptual understanding of multiplication and decomposition of numbers. Ultimately, we want students to be able to use the traditional model for multiplication since it is usually more efficient but this is a great stepping stone to get there. Okay, moving on...

The example on the right is what we were learning about in Algebra when the miracle occurred. Multiplying two binomials, everyone remembers how to do that right? FOIL of course! Multiply the first terms, multiply the outside terms, multiply the inside terms, and then multiply the last terms. Makes total sense right? Not always. It's a fun little acronym that someone made up so that their robot students could memorize the steps and regurgitate an answer. Unfortunately, it doesn't really click for all students at first. So I sent my 8th graders loose on this problem to see what they would come up with. And low and behold, two of the five groups immediately drew the area model and started working to find the partial products. WHAT? How is this possible? I didn't even show them how to do this! I asked them to explain what compelled them to do such a thing. Their reasoning? The example on the left. They confidently told me that it's the same idea. Breaking down a number (whether it be a whole number or binomial) to more manageable components and then multiplying. It was amazing. Vertical alignment at it's finest. The whole class agreed that this was a great way to see the multiplication in action and how the two binomials become the longer polynomial. Then, as if on cue, a students raises his hand and asks "Do I have to draw those stupid rectangles and boxes every time? That's going to take forever!" Cue FOIL and the more efficient method. Which now, makes sense. 

So I shared the picture above on my personal Facebook page. And then this happened: 

See that? 9, 710 shares. That's 9, 710 people (give or take a few internet trolls) who basically said "Amen" to the reason behind some of these outrageous solving strategies we are seeing in elementary schools today. Just because a model isn't the most efficient or what you would do as an adult, doesn't mean it's not teaching your child something valuable, even if that valuable piece of knowledge doesn't show up again for a few years. Have a little faith. 

After the great response from my Facebook post, I decided to start this blog. As a place to share my adventures as a math teacher, academic English language teacher (because we ALL are), and a Common Core lover. 

Also, the picture above really has nothing to do with Common Core, for all you Common Core haters. Common Core is a book of standards. It tells you what to teach at each grade level. This was just a great vertical alignment example, that many teachers had been doing for years. Common Core just helps ALL teachers be knowledgeable and take advantage of these types of standard connections at purposefully planned grade levels. Let the miracles happen! 

** Update**