The Journey To "Mathacognition"
I had taught for about 15 years. I had been a Department Chair at two boarding schools, in my fourth and last year at the second. I had been praised and praised throughout my career as the math teacher who made math make sense for students. Almost all of the classroom feedback I'd received throughout my professional career had been positive and affirming.
Then one year I made a profound change. I ditched the book, created my classes' homework and assessments, and installed a standards-based-grading platform. The best students adapted just fine. But the students for whom I had designed the course gave me mostly negative feedback. They said they didn't like interleaved practice and assessments, being reassessed, and missed not having a book because they couldn't look up example problems. I easily dismissed that last bit of criticism because the previous 13 years or so of teaching had taught me that students rarely, if ever, actually cracked open the pages of examples and instruction in the book. It seemed to me that this was simply a panicked, reactionary, and accusatory conjecture in response to the profound freedom and responsibility I had given these students to own their own learning. And it's not like they were beating down my door for help. This being a boarding school, the lack of initiative was noteworthy. My conclusion was that I simply needed to "sell" it a little more. Give students the research and observations that supported these changes and they would buy in. I thought in this way that they would see that I was more concerned about them and their ability to learn than I was about teaching them to regurgitate content.
One student's criticism, however, did register with me. It didn't come directly from him, it came through his father. This student was an unquestionably likable young man with a sense of maturity and perspective belying his Freshman status. In short, I liked him and thought well of him. His father as well was a kind man who enjoyed meeting with on the few occasions that brought us together. As his son was packing to go home for the summer, the subject of "Otis" and math came up. The father looked at me as if he had something heavy to say and wasn't sure how to say it. Finally, he said, "Otis just felt like.....you didn't know him. Which is to say, you didn't reach him."
I didn't get it. Otis was a leader in the dorm in which I did duty. I listened to him play his band's loud and aggressive heavy metal, which I at least pretended to appreciate. Because I thought so highly of Otis, I thought that my appreciation of him as a person would be obvious to him. Wasn't that enough? I never did any of a number of things a teacher might do to show dislike or mere tolerance of a student. So where did I go wrong? What more could I have done? How come he couldn't see that I cared more about him as a learner than as a math student?
"It's all about relationships" is the new bumper-sticker for people who have either a) a profound understanding of what this means or b) a very shallow appreciation for slogans that are easy to recite in any situation that might otherwise demand thinking. In fact at the time, I thought that "relationships" were for people who can't teach. Specifically, teachers who don't know their content and/or struggle to help students learn the content and skills related to their courses depend on "relationships" to get positive feedback from students. Perhaps to get the yearbook dedicated to them. Otis's father seemed to be saying that relationships were more. Was I wrong about relationships? And, what do we even mean by "relationships?"
I changed schools soon after. By aggressively selling my pedagogy to my students, I found no resistance. Students consistently gave me glowing feedback and lamented that I would not be teaching them again the following year. I became more passionately dedicated to mind-brain education and how to help students encode learning in useful, retrievable ways that reinforced my commitment to them as learners. I read Make It Stick and Neuroteach. Then I got a chance to attend the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL) at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in the summer of 2017, led by the authors of Neuroteach.
In short, it was there that learning about the important role of the amygdala and fight/flight responses as the link between relationships, safe-spaces, and student learning. (If you want me to explain more, please say so in the comments!) Students needed to feel safe and comfortable not merely as learners, but as human beings with personal, private histories and learned behaviors before they could reach their best as learners. I had previously made the jump from caring about them as merely math students to caring about them as "learners." But if I was going to become the teacher I wanted to become and develop my students as whole persons, I had to do more.
The result, was "Mathacognition." See my next post for the details of what I do now give my students not only the personal growth I want for them, but the personal growth they are craving for as learning human beings.
Then one year I made a profound change. I ditched the book, created my classes' homework and assessments, and installed a standards-based-grading platform. The best students adapted just fine. But the students for whom I had designed the course gave me mostly negative feedback. They said they didn't like interleaved practice and assessments, being reassessed, and missed not having a book because they couldn't look up example problems. I easily dismissed that last bit of criticism because the previous 13 years or so of teaching had taught me that students rarely, if ever, actually cracked open the pages of examples and instruction in the book. It seemed to me that this was simply a panicked, reactionary, and accusatory conjecture in response to the profound freedom and responsibility I had given these students to own their own learning. And it's not like they were beating down my door for help. This being a boarding school, the lack of initiative was noteworthy. My conclusion was that I simply needed to "sell" it a little more. Give students the research and observations that supported these changes and they would buy in. I thought in this way that they would see that I was more concerned about them and their ability to learn than I was about teaching them to regurgitate content.
One student's criticism, however, did register with me. It didn't come directly from him, it came through his father. This student was an unquestionably likable young man with a sense of maturity and perspective belying his Freshman status. In short, I liked him and thought well of him. His father as well was a kind man who enjoyed meeting with on the few occasions that brought us together. As his son was packing to go home for the summer, the subject of "Otis" and math came up. The father looked at me as if he had something heavy to say and wasn't sure how to say it. Finally, he said, "Otis just felt like.....you didn't know him. Which is to say, you didn't reach him."
I didn't get it. Otis was a leader in the dorm in which I did duty. I listened to him play his band's loud and aggressive heavy metal, which I at least pretended to appreciate. Because I thought so highly of Otis, I thought that my appreciation of him as a person would be obvious to him. Wasn't that enough? I never did any of a number of things a teacher might do to show dislike or mere tolerance of a student. So where did I go wrong? What more could I have done? How come he couldn't see that I cared more about him as a learner than as a math student?
"It's all about relationships" is the new bumper-sticker for people who have either a) a profound understanding of what this means or b) a very shallow appreciation for slogans that are easy to recite in any situation that might otherwise demand thinking. In fact at the time, I thought that "relationships" were for people who can't teach. Specifically, teachers who don't know their content and/or struggle to help students learn the content and skills related to their courses depend on "relationships" to get positive feedback from students. Perhaps to get the yearbook dedicated to them. Otis's father seemed to be saying that relationships were more. Was I wrong about relationships? And, what do we even mean by "relationships?"
I changed schools soon after. By aggressively selling my pedagogy to my students, I found no resistance. Students consistently gave me glowing feedback and lamented that I would not be teaching them again the following year. I became more passionately dedicated to mind-brain education and how to help students encode learning in useful, retrievable ways that reinforced my commitment to them as learners. I read Make It Stick and Neuroteach. Then I got a chance to attend the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL) at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in the summer of 2017, led by the authors of Neuroteach.
In short, it was there that learning about the important role of the amygdala and fight/flight responses as the link between relationships, safe-spaces, and student learning. (If you want me to explain more, please say so in the comments!) Students needed to feel safe and comfortable not merely as learners, but as human beings with personal, private histories and learned behaviors before they could reach their best as learners. I had previously made the jump from caring about them as merely math students to caring about them as "learners." But if I was going to become the teacher I wanted to become and develop my students as whole persons, I had to do more.
The result, was "Mathacognition." See my next post for the details of what I do now give my students not only the personal growth I want for them, but the personal growth they are craving for as learning human beings.
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