I teach both middle school "technology" (think shop class mixed with Computer Science) and I later teach the same students in geometry and calculus in high school. This means when I first work with students there are no grades, just an opportunity to be creative and learn how to use tools and programming to make things.
This creates an amazing foundation for our work in academics later.
I wonder if it could be a model for improving math education we could expand?
When I only work with students in a context where I'm giving a grade, and that grade is "high stakes" because colleges care about math grades the students are less likely to bring their full creative potential to the subject of math. Grade grubbing happens.
But when they know me from working on a project first, where the feedback is narrative, where they help set the goals they are just more open to really learning the material, not just "getting through it"
This is so well said. I work in a school with a middle school that most definitely covers the basics, but the emphasis is on experiential learning. There are no grades, all feedback is narrative. Classes are mixed ages, 6th-8th grade. Lots of work is project-based and thus hands-on. Math, science, humanities, art -- they're all integrated with each other. Students set goals for themselves, dive into personal interests under an umbrella topic, understand the inter-relatedness of various fields of study.
These students go on to flourish in high school.
But every year, *every* *single* *year*, we have at least one family that takes their kid out of the program, because the adults in the family don't think our academics are "rigorous" enough. Because what we do doesn't look like the rote learning they themselves endured.
It is heartbreaking, and no matter how well we communicate what we are doing and *why* -- it still happens. I wish I could just whip out your quote for these folks to read, every time they start getting nervous. But it probably wouldn't matter. We say all the things you say, in our own way, and it so often falls on deaf ears.
What would you like to know? 🙂
Here’s a page from the school website:
https://www.theschoolhousevt.org/curriculum-basics-elem-middle
schools should be preparing kids for real life and teaching critical thinking skills. things like math & science will be a necessary part but so are "soft" and vocational skills. that means art, music, shop too. if we expect 18 yr olds to be mostly like adults, they'll need all of this.
@futurebird I went to a lot of different schools, with different budgets for extras. I always hated gym, got absolutely nothing out of it, so dropped it as soon as it was optional. Shop class was for boys. It was mandatory for 1 year, with home-ec for the girls, and I opted out as soon as I could.
But I always had an art class in younger grades, and really appreciated my grade 7 school, in which teachers thought music so important, we had music class with sticks and triangles.
@futurebird That's actually really cool!
Most of my education experience was from teaching math at the college level while a graduate student. (I taught a smattering of courses from remedial algebra to multi-variable calculus.) By then, most students have either succeeded at or learned to hate math. I'm not going to say "failed" because I honestly don't think it's their failure a lot of the time.
The thing I observed the most there was that most students success came down far more to them feeling like they could, rather than any poorly defined definition of how smart they were or their aptitude. And a lot of that came down to having a teacher or an environment in the past that a) took time to help them understand and b) encouraged them for getting it, not just for grades. Even one good math teacher in highshool was often enough to make the difference.
So many of the students I saw who struggled at the college level just didn't believe they could do math. They might have confidence and bravado in other areas of life but someone had convinced them that they were dumb at math and it was so hard to break through that barrier once it's set in stone like that.
So anything we (or you) can do to help provide them with an environment where they can believe in themselves a bit and learn is amazing.
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