Re: Teaching math (was urgency of belief)

D. F. Siemens, Jr. wrote:

>Don't know what happened to you, but I've gotten a reasonable number of
>posts from ASAers every day. It's not the same as when there are hot
>button issues, when many are active. But there have always been some.
>
>
>
I may have missed a few mails -- perhaps something was temporarily down
on our local mail server.

>I am convinced that you have been suckered by the claim that all children
>can learn arithmetic, apparently at grade level. There are different
>levels of ability in accomplishing various tasks. Now that we have the
>ability to track brain activity, we have found that some brains are wired
>differently. This may be overcome to some extent, especially if there is
>early intervention when the brain is more plastic. But I am quite certain
>that we will discover that there is a numerical counterpart to dyslexia.
>I recall a period when the accepted wisdom was that differences between
>boys and girls was purely the result of nurture. That claim has been
>disproved, although there is a range in both groups.
>
>There are factors which can injure innate abilities. I think of a couple
>cases. A college student's intended career required that he take
>calculus. He flunked. He retook the course. Another F. Then he took
>symbolic logic, and was at the top in the class. Told that the abstract
>thinking in logic paralleled that in math, he took calculus the third
>time and got an A. I learned that when he was in grade school his
>teachers had made it clear that math was difficult, too difficult for him
>to understand. Not till he got over that block could he use his innate
>ability. The second case was a boy who, at four, was consulting /TV
>Guide/.
>
Isn't this exactly why it is demanded that teachers assume the best
about their student's capability regardless of the truth of that assumption?

>At five, he went to kindergarten, where what he was reading was
>more interesting to his classmates than what the teacher was doing. At
>six he could no longer read.
>
>A required course where I went to school was sight reading music. Prof.
>Gerber took the task seriously, but he always had some students with a
>problem singing on key. In an experiment, he had some of these
>individuals sing a note, any note. Then he hit the corresponding key on
>the piano. He said they always then slid off. There are evidently some
>individuals who cannot sing on key.
>
>There is another problem that is not addressed in elementary schools
>today, aggravated by mainlining almost all children. What a teacher can
>do one on one cannot be accomplished with a class of 30, especially when
>much time has to be devoted to the "special needs" child or children.
>
>What I have noted, based on having two outstanding teachers in the
>immediate family, is essentially negative. On the positive side, we
>expect too little from students. Raising expectations has consistently
>raised accomplishment.
>
>I would encourage you to do your best, but don't fall for malarkey.
>Schools can do better, but a requirement in most is a radical change in
>orientation and expectation.
>Dave
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>
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>

Anyway I agree with you that abilities will vary in different ways --
many of them "politically incorrect." But my point regards the required
posture I am to have as a teacher. -- I.e. my /working/ assumptions.
But of course -- one could argue that by setting up false expectations I
may be doing them damage as well. But I won't pursue that in this posting.

--merv
Received on Mon Jan 23 07:09:59 2006