Or it might involve creativity, like drawing or building something.Ĭompetition doesn’t need to be involved either, in fact, competition can cause some kids to tune out. There is some structure, maybe a common goal, but with more than one way to reach it. It can look different on different days, some days in groups, sometimes individually. It is fun, maybe challenging, organic, non-threatening, and fluid. It could be anything that we get drawn into, as opposed to pushed. I mean pretty much the same thing as regular playing. How else could we become resilient, confident, creative people? For this reason, I have tried hard to create for my own students a very different math class experience than mine was. We all needed the opportunity to think for ourselves, and to experience success as a result. I am convinced that the lack of play and fun and experimentation in those math classes did as much damage to “strong” students as to those who struggled with math. If I don’t already know how to do it, I don’t do it. To this day, I shy away from problem-solving, or anything unfamiliar, especially in public spaces. I loved math and math class, and was “successful” by today’s questionable standards, but I can’t help but wonder what might now be different if I’d had the opportunity to play in math class. I had no idea why the prescribed procedure worked, only that it did, and that was good enough for me. But I definitely did not understand why multiplying fractions worked, or what partial fractions even were once I got to CEGEP. Sometimes I understood how the algorithms worked, for example, why we needed to have common denominators to add fractions, and I basked in that understanding. I enjoyed following those algorithms because of the security they offered – I knew I’d get the right answer. Do what you’re told, follow the algorithms, remember all the things forever, and you’ll get good marks. I understood, and eventually mastered, the whole studenting game.
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