Multiplying my Math Musings

image from Wikimedia Commons

It is hard to believe that we are almost through the first six weeks of the school year and that October is upon us.  It is not hard to believe that I have not written a blog post since August however.  The fast pace of the school year is upon us, and it seems like the days are traveling faster than the Millennium Falcon at hyper-speed.  But just because I have not committed them to digital paper, it does not mean that I have not been thinking for the last month.  In particular I have been thinking about math.

I am not, nor will I ever admit to being, good at math.  It was not a subject that I enjoyed, or excelled at, while I was at any level of my schooling.  With my love for economics and problem solving, this should be a surprise, but I just can't seem to make math make sense in my brain.  When I have students come to me who are struggling in math, I can easily sympathize, but not so easily help them and this extends now to my own daughter Sophie.

My inability to help Soph with her math is not something new, as she exceeded my current math memories when she began taking pre-algebra 2 years ago, but 2 weeks ago it all boiled over.  It was a rare evening when I was home earlier enough for Sophie to still be doing her math homework and as she struggled she asked me a geometry question:  "If two sides of a triangle are congruent, are the angles congruent?"  I am sure my high school geometry teacher Mr. Allen would love for me to say that some 29 years later I was able to quickly answer this problem, but the reality is I could vaguely recall what congruent meant, but had no idea what the answer was, so I turned to Google.  Google quickly informed me that this would be true, and I went back to reading an article titled Why Nate Silver Can Save Math Education in America from Mindshift.

Sophie, quickly then interrupted my thoughts with another question, which I cannot recall, and I in frustration asked her how it was that she had just watched my Google the previous answer that she could not take her phone, which was sitting next to her, and do the same thing that I would be doing for this question.  This was not one of my finest parenting moments and did not go over very well.  My frustration was being driven by two things, one the embarrassment and frustration of not being able to help my daughter (and painful realization that she is mathematically much smarter than me) and the frustration that she was not using the technological tools she has been given to problem solve on her own-but that is a topic for another post.

After the residue of my frustration had again settled, I apologized to my daughter, finished the article I was reading,  and found her some pencils from the Rose Hulman homework helpline Ask Rose (1-877-Ask-Rose).  The article, however, struck a chord with me, because of 3 quotations that I have excerpted below:

 Paul Lockhart, a math teacher in New York, writes in A Mathematician’s Lament [PDF] that if he had to design a system for the express purpose of destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, he couldn’t possible do a better job than is currently being done. He explains that he simply wouldn’t have the “imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul-crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education.”

Across the land, kids hate math. You can hear it in their constant groans and see it in their deranged faces. They ask their teachers, “When am I ever going to use this in life?” On most occasions, they never will. Even President Obama agrees. He recently said on the Tonight Show, “The math stuff I was fine with until seventh grade. Malia is now a freshmen in high school and I’m pretty lost. It’s tough.” 

There are lots of reasons for this. In the current system, students’ confidence in their math abilities becomes undermined, according to a Duke University study. Math is taught as computation rather than a means of exploration and discovery. Instead of engaging in meaningful problems and learning in depth rather than breadth, kids are assigned frivolous, repetitive problems. And finally, the way math is generally taught has no relevance to real life. School has become a practice of learning tricks for the test one week and forgetting the next.

These statements resonated with me,  because there was a time, that I vaguely remember in the far reaches of my mind, when I was good at math.  When I was in the highest math group, and I enjoyed math-6th grade.  But after that, math became the drudgery described above for me, the relevance left, and I moved on to other subjects that I enjoyed more.  This is not a post blaming my teachers, or even the system that taught me that I am not more engaged in math, but it is one to ponder about why it seems soo many students seem to hate it so.  So I have spent the last two weeks talking via email with math teachers on our staff, reading more articles about math.  The two most impactful being an ASCD article on Real World Math by Dan Meyer and a blog post by Mike Thayer on his Hyperbolic Guitars Blog in response to Nicholson Baker's September 2013 Harper's article on Algebra 2 in which he (Mr. Baker) advocates that we stop teaching math without a narrative and that instead of requiring all students to take the math sequences we now offer in school (Algebra, Geometry, Algebra 2, Pre-Calculus, etc..) we require a math survey course and then allow students who desire more math to pursue the higher level courses as electives.  

Both of these resonated with me for different reasons.  The blog post by Mr. Thayer exposed me to discussions that appear to be happening more frequently in the math education community about how to restructure math, many, but not all, driven by the changes to come with the Common Core Standards, but also made me think about how eliminating the requirements for higher level math might further widen the achievement gap in the United States.

An Aside:  This article by the way, completely flipped my view on higher math from a year earlier after reading Andrew Hacker's NY Times article Is Algebra Necessary?  that had appealed to my desire to spare others my frustration with math and got me to think more about how we teach math vs. is math necessary.  Hacker's argument to get rid of a required subject, just because students dislike it and see no relevance in the "real world" could be applied to any subject.  History teachers often hear this same complaint and Bob Knight once famously said (of sportswriters) "All of us learn to write in second grade, most of us go on to greater things" yet we still require English courses at all levels despite protestations of students and rarely do we hear of calls to eliminate those courses.

The second connected because as I watched the video from Mr. Meyer, I realized that this is what I wanted math to be.  I don't want to watch my daughter be frustrated doing problems 1-25 odds only on a nightly basis, I want her to be able to connect her learning to the world around her.  To be using the math she is learning to solve real problems.  To see the joy and pride that she has in the house she designed on Minecraft applied to her using math to design real houses.  To watch her ponder how to build a better tree house on the Simple Physics App but to have the lessons of that exercise made more concrete through the skill of a math expert. To see her again be doing math online during the summer, simply for the joy of doing math. To end the "hoop jumping" that my colleague Michael Delp so passionately expressed last fall.  My only remaining question is this:  If our math teachers are recognizing the futility and frustration they are causing, if the common core is set to force students to use math in a much more applied fashion, what is keeping all of us from teaching more like the video below?

 

 

 

Where Do We Go From Here

Creative Commons License use from 96dpi (Andreas Levers) at Flickr

Every summer we spend time interviewing potential new staff members for jobs at Plymouth High School and as I reflect on the answers to the questions we ask, I often use my drive time home to think about how I might answer a similar question when the time comes for me to seek a principal position.  One of the questions that has always troubled me is "Where do you see yourself in five years?"  It is troubling in many respects, the first and foremost being that while wanting to sound ambitious and desiring to move up, you don't want to be viewed as being overly motivated by the desire to have the job of the person hiring you.  In today's world of education though, it troubles me more because I no longer know where we might be in five years as an industry.

When I was growing up teaching was one of the most stable professions in the world, so much so that this has become one of the chief complaints/criticisms of the industry as the reform era has dawned.  Despite recent high turnover, according to a 2011 Huffington Post article the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future estimates that 50% of teachers leave the profession within 5 years of entering it, in my educational life as a student (Lyons Township High School Class of 1987) it seemed as if my teachers never left, and where still there when I went back to visit unless they retired.  Today, with the pace of change that future can no longer be assured.  I often wonder if I will still be in education long enough to retire, not because of a decision by me to leave what I love, but rather because education as a profession will no longer exist in a form that supports the education enterprise.

I am not bemoaning change, in fact over my years in the profession I have not only embraced it but chased after it, but rather I ponder how those changes will come and what they may look like.  A few weeks ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal titled the The $4 Million Teacher, that might show us a window into what that five years from now world might look like.  It both exhilarated and scared me at the same time.  I was exhilarated at the possibilities of how we can use technology to better connect our students to resources and truly differentiate the learning they receive.  I was scared because of the wide chasm that the system described has created between those who have access to private teachers outside of school hours and those who do not and must rely on what schools can offer within their budget restrictions.  In a perfect world, all students would have access to the best and brightest teachers and know how to connect with quality resources for learning.  In the real world, the basic economic problem of scarcity will continually raise it's head and swat away those dreams and aspirations.  It is our challenge as a nation to see how we can pursue the dream of equality in education as it competes with the myriad other budgetary goals, entitlements, and Bridges to Nowhere.

Four years ago when I came to Plymouth High School I was asked where I wanted to be in five years.  I can no longer recall my response, but here is how I would answer if asked today, and it really is not focused on the position I would want to be in, but rather the type of school system I would want to work in.

I want to be a principal in a progressive school system.  One that is on the cutting edge of education, that embraces the changes and challenges of the profession, is a leader in expanding opportunities for students and meeting them at their point of need not our point of instruction, one that is built on a foundation of continuous pursuit of knowledge to improve the craft of teaching.  I don't know where that place is exactly, but I want to be a part of making this place become that one.  

What would your answer look like?  More importantly, what are you doing today to bring that ideal place into your current one?

Tivo my Life

When I was growing up Thursday nights on NBC where consistently the best night of TV.  Hill Street Blues, The Cosby Show, Cheers, etc... Each of those shows became something you had to watch.  By the 90's, when Friends, Seinfeld, Fraser, and ER dominated Thursday night and it had become Must see TV.  Today however, appointment TV has become whenever and where ever we want it to occur.  We can Tivo our shows, to watch at a later time (5 of them at once if you have Directv's Genie), can watch anything on our phones, including football, and can watch live tv on our tablets.

But tonight's post is not about television and my by gone youth.  Nor is it about disconnecting from our hyper connected world.  Rather it is about a random thought as I walked out of school.  What if I could Tivo my exercise.  I am not talking about Tivoing shows to watch them later, while I am on the treadmill, but rather being able to pause, rewind, or record my actual workouts so that they fit better into my life.  Last year I did a wellness journey for a local wellness facility.  I worked out regularly, wrote about my experience, and in general enjoyed myself.  Then, when the time to promote ended, so did my journey.

Even when I would schedule a workout or class as an appointment-it wasn't Must see TV, and thus it often went undone.  Even the negative incentive for missing workouts-money I was paying for access to the club that I was not using being money that was basically being thrown away-was not enough to get me back on track.  As our Director of Guidance said in a meeting last week, the pace of our school is incredibly fast, and it is.  That became incredibly evident this week when the first two days of school sped by with me barely being able to find time to each lunch, and students haven't even arrived yet.

This week with school beginning again, I had made the goal of beginning to work out again.  The goal being to go to 2 classes a week (cycling and yoga) and then run/walk a minimum of 3.1 miles on my own 2 days a week.  So far I am oh for two, and it is not looking better for the rest of the week.  It is not so much that I don't want to be healthier, but rather time seems to slip so quickly by, and before I know it the day is done and my workout is not.  I need to find a way to insert more time into my day.  To be able to pause what is going on, spend my 30 minutes working out, and then pick back up where I left off.  In reality I need to not Tivo my Workout, but rather Tivo my Life.

Now if I could only figure out how to invent an app for that, or at least find a working method to make exercise happen...

The Joys of the Young

I spent tonight working on a presentation for our students with my daughter.  Normally, my work stays at school, or at least gets done outside on my deck as oppesed to being done in the house with my family. Tonight was different though, first I was attempting to make some informative videos regarding computer policy at our high school, and I wanted to have some fun doing them, so I used the Tellagami App to do them. If you have not used them before, Tellagami allows you to create gamis, which are full body avatars that you can create from scratch. You can choose the gender, eye color, hair color and style, skin color, and clothing of your gami, and best of all you can give your gami an outsized head. For a background you can use a pre-made one, or upload a background of your own from your photostream. For these gamis I used noticeable places from around our school, and then enlisted my youngest daughters help to design the gami (she consulted on mine and then designed 3 of her own) and then record 3 of the four messages. Per family policy, whenever I use either of my daughters in my work, or mention them in my blog or in class they are paid, so this would cost me $5 for creative talents, but the joy it brought was well worth it. It was fun to watch her as she practiced her lines, recorded her speeches, in her normal voice and her English accent, and acted out her gestures as she spoke. The best part though were the multiple takes. For each script she read through it silently first, asking for help with words that were beyond her 4th grading reading level, then practiced two times before hitting record. After each take she would listen, critique her work, and if not satisfied start over. It was a great way to spend and evening, but the best payoff was yet to come....When we finished with our gamis, she sat down at her computer and began typing out scripts for some gamis of her own. I can't wait to see what she produces. As an added bonus, while recording our gamis, I thought that maybe we should use some of the gamis to illustrate our dress code, create one dressed appropriately, and as my duaghter would say one "not so much" (must be said in a snooty English accent for best effect). My wife then suggested that instead of using the limited dress of gamis, maybe she would model appropriate and not so much appropriate outfits and give her opinion. For a girl who changes clothes 5 times a day, this was too good a deal. So tomorrow morning we will be up early, filming some dress code videos to share with the faculty, and hopefully continuing to have a blast, even if it will cost me a few dollars more.

Celebration, Celebration, Celebration

Education is a rough business, and it gets rougher as the year goes on.  As we all gear up to head back to schools in August and September, when everyone is happy, healthy, and the year seems ready to explode with awesome possibilities, it probably is a good time to think about how we can store up those amazing moments when life/school just clicks.  We all know them, that time that Johnny after weeks of struggle finally learned how to solve quadratic equations, or when Suzie, after trembling with trepidation and reporting to the nurse's office weekly during her speech class, finally got up and gave her first speech to her classmates.  Those moments that take your breath away, send your heart a flutter, and remind you what makes our job so rewarding.

Unfortunately, those moments often seem few and far between and the moments of frustration that often lead to these great break throughs often seem to slowly, and then by February, rapidly outweigh and bury that opening day spark.  For years I have kept letters from former students on the wall of my office, so that in those moments of quite desperation I can remember that the system does work, that children learn, grow, and succeed, and that we have the privilege in getting to play a small part of that growth and development.  Another administrative friend of mine keeps an "At a Boy" file where he has stored up 30 years of such notes, moments and sentiments.  But in the digital age, might there be a better way to record those amazing learning moments and archive them for future reflection and rejuvenation.

As I was reading this morning I stumbled across this article from the New York Times about Nataly Kogan's social media start up Happier.  The premise of happier is to share, visually and in text those simple moments when life clicks and joy enters our lives.  Currently the service is currently available on the web and for iOS devices (a drawback for those using an Android smart phone) and allows you to share those moments with friends, family, your PLN, or the random stranger (admittedly a potential negative when sharing about students but in our hyper connected world sharing of student work with proper protocols has already begun to take off).

I spent some moments thinking about and browsing the site, and while I am not sure that I will sign up, or use it, the thought makes me a little, well happier, and has caused me to think about how I can store up those moments of joy to tap into when faced with moments of frustration or struggle.

How do you or will you cherish those times this year?

My Yearly Re-Commitment to Blog More

It is July, I am at a conference, learning many great things and having some amazing thoughts that I need to process, and thus my mind travels once again to this blog and my yearly look back at how little I have produced-compared to what I want to see occur.  Inspired by George Couros of The Principal of Change who advocated today, to just get out and do it-when speaking of blogging, here I go again.

I am not sure how to begin, although I know that a basic beginning would be to set a goal and then put it out via social media so that those cyberly close to me can hold me accountable to that output.  This worked well last fall, when I blogged more often and was in a writing group where I had committed to writing on a weekly basis.  This went well, until as a group we seemed to die out as all of our lives became busier and more complex as the school year went on.

I could carve out a time in my day, and set it as an appointment not to miss, so that I would be forced to daily sit, reflect on what has occurred, what I have learned, or what I have read that day that has impacted me.  While I love this idea, it doesn't work so well when I try it for exercise-which admittedly I am not overly fond of-I also worry that like most items on my schedule it becomes tidal waved by the things going around me that are beyond the control of my schedule.  Not to make excuses about time, as I found this great graphic today to really convict me about time:

At the start of his talk today, George Couros said "The smartest person in the room, is the room." Thus, I am turning to those who read this and am asking for comments.  Those of you who blog regularly, what is the secret of your success, and how can I tap in to that?

What Will You Learn Today?

I saw this yesterday at the entry to the Idea Factory at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago while visiting with my children.  It was a simple invitation for the children to come explore and learn.  Underneath, staff members wrote questions that rotated throughout the day to guide the exploration and assist parents in helping connect the activities to broader learning.  It made me wonder why we don't begin class this way every day?

Students begin school with a desire to learn, but often by the time they reach the secondary grades the joy of learning has gone out from them, replaced by a resignation that this is what they must do because the state, their parents, and the school have mandated it.  The joy that I saw as I watched my own children (ages 9 and 13) as they explored the museum's various exhibits and thought about what they were doing, trying new things, learning as they experienced new sights and sounds was a joy for me to watch.  It also got me thinking about how we may return this joy of learning to schools and in particular about two recent reading events.

The first reading event came when our trip to Chicago began, as I believe all family vacations should begin, with a trip to the local library to pick out books to read while we were gone.  I chose Bill O'Reilly and Matt Dugard's follow up to their best seller Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy which was good but not as good as Killing Lincoln.  It was my daughter's choices that intrigued me.  My youngest chose books that were stories about gymnastics, not surprising since she longs to be the next Gabby Douglass.  Additionally, she is my child that already knows what she wants to do when she grows up-go to Purdue and become a veterinarian.

It was the choices of my oldest daughter that intrigued me.  She did not choose novels, a book from a series, or books geared towards teens.  Rather she chose three books on photography.  For the past 6 months or so she has been saving up her money to purchase a new digital camera with removable lenses.  She has posted over 1100 pictures in the 4 months she has been allowed to have an instagram account and has even set up a secondary instagram account for her more artsy pictures.  She loves photography and it was very cool to see her choose to read and learn more about it.  Will this lead to a future job?  I am not sure, but for a student who when I ask what she wants to do says, "I don't know" it was a joy to see her follow her passion.

The second reading event occurred the morning of our museum trip when I read following article on 20% Time by AJ Juliani in Edutopia and this blog post on 10 Reasons to Try 20% Time also from AJ.  The article highlighted how schools could utilize this concept from Google to help inspire their learners to engage more in the learning process.  In short, it would allow students to daily ask of themselves "What do I Want to Learn Today?" and then pursue that learning.  Moving to a system would require a radical change by schools, teachers, and administrators-most because it would require the system to allow students to be in more charge of their learning and require us to trust that they were doing so-which might be the greatest challenge.

We regularly speak about learning about our students so that we can tap in to their interests to help connect learning to something they enjoy when they don't see the connection to what they are learning.  But what do we do, when what they are passionate about doesn't fit in to one of our curricular areas or can be measured by a state mandated test at the end of the year?  One way to start this process though may be through giving students a limited amount of time to define what they want to learn, and then supporting that pursuit at the same level we support their learning of state mandated items.

Special thanks to my colleague Reid Gault (@reidgault) the principal of Lincoln Junior High School in Plymouth, IN.  In the past 6 months, since he finished the book Inevitable,  he has been pushing my thinking about how we educate students.  He has continued to innovate at his school, bringing in student choices that allow them to choose their educational path.  In the past year Lincoln has begun a school within a school via the New Tech Network  focusing on project based learning and this year will add a SOLE program in which students in the SOLE study hall will have the opportunity to choose their own learning path to explore a passion of their own.