I have been interested in Mathematics since as far back as I can remember. Growing up, we didn't have a lot of money and a game I would play is to add up the contents that went into the shopping cart (you know, to keep a keen eye on my mom's spending). All those price tags of 3.49, 6.79 and 1.29, gave me a real world use for using estimation. This practice also allowed me to build skills with number fluency, operations and at the root of it all, what numbers mean.
Within my classroom I push for this fluency. What does this mean? What do you mean by this? At first I was asking these questions because I wanted students to appreciate numbers the way I appreciate numbers. After several years in the classroom it dawned on me, that those questions I was asking extended beyond the Mathematics classroom. Formulas, facts, conversions and theorems can all be looked up, watched, listened too and utilized using other more simple algorithms. What we are doing as educators is helping prepare students for future classes, post-secondary, success within the job market and so on. Being able to know what you mean by this or knowing what this means are essentials to "adulting". I use this example because I want education to divert away from what doesn't work. To find this, we need to ask ourselves, what does this mean? Or, What do we mean by this? If we are giving a Do Now, why are we giving a Do Now. If we have classes structured to separate Science, English, Social Science, P.E. and Art why are we doing this. If we are assigning homework 4 days a week, what do we expect from this. Why, why, why gets a little monotonous, but it is essential in what we do as educators. This year our small site team has decided to stray away from traditional classes. We have short skill classes, long Project Based classes and frequent rotations within the quarters. Why are we doing this? Simple, what we were doing before wasn't working. So we asked ourselves, why are we doing this?
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Exactly 288 hours until my wedding day, a graduate program that is just beginning, a house we just closed on and moved into and a school year that starts tomorrow. With all of these major life events happening at once, it has given me an opportunity to organize, prioritize and most importantly, find my zen mental space (which at the moment is HARD). While stressful, or as the title says, "Whoa...This is a lot" it is these experiences that define our human existence. With every uncharted endeavor emotions of joy, excitement, fear, self-doubt, stress and many other describers will come out to play. For emotions is what makes our human experience so profound. Now to find my zen mental space yet again. |
Joseph WilliamsI have a love for getting students jazzed about math, art and food. Currently educating youth at an alternative high school program in Portland. Archives
November 2017
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