Why--the secret to teaching math.

[Joseph Austin]

I recently had a conversation with a corporate training executive regarding the problems of teaching math. Below is his response.

QUOTE

First, vocabulary matters as it typically reflects attitudes. My programs were referred to as training by my audiences. Thus, to avoid confusion with them, I referred to them as training when communicating with them. When left to myself and those assisting in the design, development and delivery, I used different vocabulary to reflect the truth.

I helped others to learn. I did not teach. I did not train. It is why I ALWAYS started with motivation. Someone must have a desire to learn and be engaged in learning (no matter the level of effectiveness) before it is possible to help them learn more effectively. That is, one cannot HELP someone do something that they are not already doing. 

I wasn't being cute when I prompted the question ... "What is the purpose of math?" The manner by which you brushed against a response lacked perspective in terms of the audience I perceived was being targeted. From your response, the audience became society and physicists. Originally, I perceived the audience to be individual students much younger and much nearer the beginning of the pipeline than a physicist.

Let me tell you a story...

When I showed up at college to enroll in classes I encountered a room filled with administrators. In terms of courses, I was told what was theoretically offered. Of those, I was told what I could take and what I couldn't take. Of those I could take, I was told what I had to take and what was optional. Of each category, I was told what was actually offered (still open). Of those I was told which matched the days of the week and the times of the day for which I had an interest. And so on.

The result was dismal. I ended up enrolled in courses for which I had little interest scheduled on days and at times where my desires were in conflict.

As bad as that experience was, it included "geometrically" more choices than any school experience before college. 

Now, the interesting part of the story ...

During orientation, I walked into a room filled with salespeople. All of them were engaged in the same activities. They were being as clever as they knew how to help me match my interest to their products and services. 

Do you know what they were selling?

They were selling intramural sports, fraternities, academic clubs, hobby clubs, political clubs, military careers, and the such. 

Does my story help you to differentiate between teaching someone and helping someone to learn? 

Does my story help you to differentiate between a people with freedom and those without freedom?

You and everyone involved trying to solve your "teaching" problem are nothing but a lot of Dorothy's wearing ruby slippers. You have been carrying the solution around with you from the moment you defined the problem. 

Ask yourself - how does "play" attract participants and help them to learn? 

My wife, who does not know how to operate the controls for our TV slash sound system slash streaming system, learned how to operate her smart phone requiring many more procedural steps. Gee ... I wonder of the two devices, which has more relevance to her.

Those selling "play" are far superior in their approach than those mandating math or any other required school topic. It would be hard for me to believe that you and your stumped discussion group are ignorant to the way by which play is sold.

A fundamental problem with academics in the USA is that it operates outside the norms of freedom. One would expect to find our academic approach in a country like China where choices re commerce, family size, occupation, etc. are more likely to be dictated than selected. 

Open your eyes. Take notice of every endeavor that is in conflict with freedom. You will discover all share the same failings.

You keep asking the same question. Perhaps if I capture it within an appropriate image you will recognize it for what it is.

Your question is ...

In a high pressure (pipe) environment with water traveling left to right, how do you get one drop of water to travel right to left?

You can discuss your problem for decades more. When you're in a car that departed from St. Louis driving west you cannot reach NYC until you turn the car around. The idea that you could somehow change the driver, control knobs, tires, etc to get to NYC is ridiculous. 

The failing of helping people to learn Math is a symptom, not a problem. Solve the problem and the symptom will go away.

ENDQUOTE

[Bradford Hansen-Smith]

 Joe, thank you for the story.

Curiosity in its natural child-like state followed by playing with what we do not know about what caught our attention to wonder in the first place.

Play is key and may not have anything to do with ST Louis or NYC.  Stop the car, get out, look around and wonder.

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Bradford Hansen-Smith
www.wholemovement.com

[Joseph Austin]

On Jul 8, 2016, at 10:26 AM, Bradford Hansen-Smith <wholem...@gmail.com> wrote:

Joe, thank you for the story. 

A few more stories:

1. When our family moved to a new town, my brother entered a new school.

He discovered his math class was an "open classroom," with distributed work centers, lots of visuals and manipulatives,

a choice of colorful task cards with fun things to do, etc.  For the first time in his life, he was really enjoying math, and was good at it.

Too good. 

After a couple weeks, the teachers moved him to another class.  It turned out that, being new and of unknown ability,

(since his previous school was of questionable reputation) he had been placed in the "remedial" class.  Having shown talent,

he was moved to a "regular" class, complete with a teacher-lecturer, regimented curriculum, etc., just like his old school.

2. I heard another story about taking a child for an educational walk or museum tour.

Parent A leads the way, pointing out all the interesting things along the way and explaining them to junior as he goes.

After a short while, junior is tired an wants to go home.

Parent B lets the child lead the way, stoping where she may, discovering what she will, and showing enthusiasm for her discoveries 

and answering her questions with a version of "what do you think?" or another leading question.

After a long while, parent is exhausted and wants to go home, but child is still eager for more.

3. I wanted to introduce my grandchildren to a computer coding app, Scratch.

I was thinking of calling them over, "PaPa wants to show you something" and demonstrating the operation of the IDE.

Instead, I just lay down on the floor with my laptop,where the kids (who were busy with other toys) could see me, 

and started running short programs to make the cat dance.

Soon, a kid came over. 'What are you doing, PaPa?  Can I see?  Can I try it?...

It's the Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence approach.

[Joseph Austin]

On Jul 8, 2016, at 10:26 AM, Bradford Hansen-Smith <wholem...@gmail.com> wrote:

Joe, thank you for the story. 

[kirby urner]

Soon, a kid came over. 'What are you doing, PaPa?  Can I see?  Can I try it?...

It's the Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence approach.

Good stories, and I enjoyed hearing from your corporate training executive.

I'm back to night school teaching, of adults, not school teachers.  Here's a screenshot from last night:

​

Anyway, your story about letting kids lead the way in the museum reminds me of all the wonderful hours I've had in museums, starting right here in OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) as a little kid.  

My favorite exhibit in many ways was "the transparent lady", a pre-Bodies plastic mannikin that talked about her internal organs as they lit up one-by-one while she revolved on her platform.  She had her own auditorium, with shows on the hour.  She was awesome. 

We met up again later when I was an older man, with wife and kids.  She didn't have her own auditorium anymore (the museum had moved to a new location) but she still seemed like the goddess of OMSI:

​

That early OMSI (still near the Oregon Zoo) also had a giant heart one could walk through, microscopes for seeing germs, all manner of interactive activities.  I loved it!

After we moved to Rome and I was old enough to go around town unsupervised, I'd visit the Vatican Museum of my own volition, sometimes with friends, and we'd go through everything at high speed, getting overview.  

Self paced meant peddle to the metal in my case.  Other times I'd slow down.  

Even as just a sixth grader I was up on my Etruscans, Huns, and Visigoths, knew about several Roman emperors, Hadrian especially (I liked to visit his villa, famous "ruins" as they're called).  Plus I had the run of the city as a whole, and climbed (with some friends) on Trevi Fountain while the tourists threw coins.  

The tourists must've thought we were street urchins adding local color, not cosmopolitan kids, which I guess is why the police let us do it (looking back, we were crazy).

What your executive and you point out, is how liberating it is to be in charge of your own education at some level. Your own will matters.  

Rather than devise ingeniously draconian systems to suppress that will, teaching uniformity, conformity and (at the highest levels) mindless obedience, we want instead to instill sensitivity to that inner calling.  

Listening to one's own heart is something others can't do for one.  

Creating space for such listening, and encouraging it, is a way to have people "self track" through a process of discovering their own talents, pursuing their own goals.  

Optimizing for such self-tracking is something we barely know how to do, since so much in our institutional bag of tricks, is based in beliefs about humans being evildoers (lazy bums at best) if left to their own devices.  

As an experiment, I'd like to wire up "programmed money" to some educational games arcade, usable by learner-players at the museum-school gift shop.  

Maybe the "money" (credit) only has value on that day, in that place, for that person. Maybe spending five hours blissfully immersed in cell biology simulations, nets one quality mentored time in a microscopy lab. Reward study with more access.  Who pays?  Ultimately, the sun sponsors pretty much everything around here, but maybe we'll credit WalMart. :-D

Seriously, I bet the Silicon Forest would sponsor some serious Learning Labs if we could figure out how to self organize more effectively.  We need a Renaissance in public-private partnerships. #CodeCastle #4D

Kirby

[Peter Farrell]

For the last month I've been teaching Python-Raspberry Pi coding camps for middle school age kids. I found that even the boisterous skate-punk boys will do some serious coding or math if it's going to pay off with something cool. It could be a complicated-looking fractal or something in a 3D Minecraft world they could then walk around inside. I thought the first time I taught them about arrays was a failure but they soon got into it once they saw how easy it was to make complicated mazes in Minecraft by copying and pasting rows and rows of 0's and 1's. The attached maze was made by an 11-year old:

I'm a big fan of giving students a "why" for learning. It might seem random or that it lacks rigor but maybe my corner of the STEM landscape is to provide something for students to like/love about math/programming class who would otherwise hate it.

Is this boy an expert on arrays now? No, but when he hears about them next, he'll know they have a fun application that the teacher is either hiding or doesn't know about.

Peter