Mastodawn

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?

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myrmepropagandist 2d ago

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"

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myrmepropagandist 2d ago

Also when schools gut their arts programs, when they get rid of things like shop class and PE it's really harmful. It's harmful even if all you care about is students learning "the basics" eg. how to read and write, how to understand numbers and a smattering of history. Young people can't understand those things as well when they simply have less experience in everything.

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ℒӱḏɩę 💾☮∞🎶♲☀🔋

@futurebird Schools today do not train life skills or critical thinking at all. They're designed to generate peons for the corporate class. Only when this changes will students be properly prepared for the real world, like they were 50 years ago.