Experiencing School Mathematics - Ch 3

Structured, disciplinded, and controlled. In a nut shell that basically summarizes the illusion many teachers, administrators, and district personelle have when they picture the ideal classroom and school. We have become exceedingly great at molding the clients into beings that learn, listen, and respond in a unision of our choosing. We bend over backwards in our institutions to induce obedience and conformitiy to the nth degree. We tell students to "just be quiet", to "put their heads down" , to "just sit there" if there's not willing to participate - all in the name so that we can cover the curriculum, so that we can get our end of the job done. The fallout is huge, but we plead innocent, helplessness. The mess of a system we have helped to create has polarized our students and staff alike. Teachers pin themselves against each other to hoard materials, to secure funding for their department. Our staff rooms are no different than the student's cafeteria - we immediately congegate ourselves into "strong subject loyalties" as the students hoard into their familiar peer pockets. What Boaler describes in Amber Hill is very much what we find, but more sadly, what we want to find in the school we teach at. It's less stressful on us, right? Our parents will give us less grief if we follow the status quo. We perceive these schools as being safe, secure, stable. Us teachers like that. A lot.

One idea that was raised in our class continues to stay with me. We talked about the teacher who come June 1 claps the chalk off their hands and says "I'm done." We've imparted the necessary knowledge from the curriculum unto our students. We've got all our mandatory tests in, all review sheets practiced and corrected, and heaven forbid all the "good questions" from the textbook assigned. Why do we continue to think this way? How come we don't want to raise the bar, to dig further, to take the extra time and investigate mathematical modelling situations with our students? Why are we stuck? Some say it's the time pressures, the work load, the fact that come May and June we are worn so thin we just want to survive. I say it's because that's what our school systems, our departments of education have expected of us, because that's what we believe our jobs are. As Edward Losely was quoted as saying "you've got the national curriculum basically and if you cover the national curriculum you're doing your job." However, the jobs we're doing are failing children, are dismantling many of their inherent abilities. Oh sorry, I forgot, those abilities aren't wanted in our classrooms. Leave them at the door. Sir Ken, come save us!

As I read the second half of this chapter and came to realize the drastic differences between Amber Hill and Phoenix Park I realized that hmmm, just maybe there is a better way. I knew instantly that I could buy into such a system of "progessive education, placing particular emphasis on self-reliance and independence." (p. 18). I have been in very few school's where the ambiance was one of peacefulness instead of screaming and chaos. My curiosities increased with bewilderment firstly over the fact their mathematical teaching virtually eliminated the use of textbooks. Secondly, the notion that teachers allowed students to work on their own, unsupervised, while still expecting them to be responsible for their learning was truly fascinating. Tell me, please tell me where I can find a staff room where I won't suffocate from listening to endless complaints form my colleagues, where people are actually relaxed and unintimated by their administrations. What is the directions to Phonnix Park again?

"Jim treated the students as if they were adults; he rarely reprimanded them, and when students misbehaved he had conversations with them about the inconsiderateness of their behavior" (p. 20).

Jim's demenaour with his students is one we really need to start incorportating more into our relationships with our students. I've seen white board in the general office completely full with dentention lists more backlogged than the surgury appointments at the Health Sciences Centre. I admit I was one of those who assigned students to a complete hour of silence, without sound, without movement. After the hour they'd dash for the door, only to find themselves back there again the following Tuesday. However, after supervising the dentention session once I vowed unto myself never to subject my students to such a waste of time again. I was working against years of a tradition at this school - this is how it is. I admit too I never spoke with my misbehaved students enough either to really understand the reasons for their actions but I tried to change despite what was going on around me. I began to model myself after another teacher on our staff, one who had the respect of all students, but more interestingly, the respect of the lower-achievers, the ones who "caused all the trouble in the school." I remember asking Paul how he did it and his message was simple: make them feel important, that they matter, that you care about their futures more than you care about the material you're given to cover. They just needed attention, recognition, validation, conversation. Rising above the politics of the school and the traditions they peached I followed Paul's advice and witnessed noticeable differences in the demeanour of many students. Finally, it started to become a pleasure to teach them. Who knew which just a few simple changes in me, the teacher, could reuslt in such monumental changes for them, my students. Today, I see Paul's philosophy resonating once again here across Boaler's pages as I uncover Phoenix Park's raison d'etre.