A Door Opens

In the middle of a sleepy math class, in the middle of an algebra problem, a door opened.  In that moment, I realized that not understanding algebra isn't a reflection of intelligence or motivation.  The problem seems to be a conflict between the way it is presented and the way most of the students in the class process information.  This class is composed of students who haven't passed the math portion of the state tests.  It covers the same ground in the same way as the regular algebra class.   The problem was obvious.  The students aren't understanding it.  I was sitting in a class of students who think "outside the box."  They require an "outside the box" explanation.  They aren't getting it.

I was once one of them.  Algebra was a hopeless mystery to me.  Now, for the first time ever, I'm beginning to understand it.  I've also been given a glimpse of a beauty and logic that lies just beyond the numbers.  The numbers are a language and are limited in the same way that all languages are.  The math beyond the numbers is the point, not the numbers themselves, just as it is with the words we speak or write.  Algebra is expressing numeric truths in the only way it knows how, in numbers.

This revelation has made math exciting even though it still largely remains a foreign language to me.  The kids in this class don't know that I once sat in a class like this.  Instead of a patient and funny teacher, I faced a mercurial nun who made Cruella de Ville look like Mother Teresa.  My fellow classmates and I were a tight group of frightened math idiots who were told we were stupid on a daily basis.  We accepted the label and played the part as we suffered together in the trenches of the hopelessly mathematically-challenged. 

Today, I understood that a different way of approaching the problems could have made a world of difference.  I'm convinced  that our "Sister Mary Nightmare" never realized this.   If she had been able to think "outside the box" and present the information in a variety of ways, her math idiots just might have surprised her.

My head was so full of this idea that I carried it with me all day.  I saw clearly how much of the day is spent in "pounding information" into the student's heads so that they can better pass the state tests they must take.  No wonder they are bored and unmotivated.  They are expected to be receptacles of certain information.  They've never been allowed to fully explore all that learning might be and how exciting it can be. 

The day is spent in providing them "vital information" but very little time is devoted to helping them learn how to solve problems.  This is the life skill I want most for my own children.  I've been expecting our public school system to fill the need.  I've been wrong.

Near the end of the day, I sat in a class in which an English teacher had to give the students some history as a background to help them better understand a poem.  History, Geography and Social Studies don't have the prominent place in the curriculum as they had in the past.   A majority of freshman students can not tell you when WWII took place.  They don't understand who the Nazis were.  They know almost nothing about the Civil War or the Civil Rights movement.  They can't tell you where most of the countries of the world are.  They know even less about current world events.  Passing the state tests have trumped learning things that are important in developing good citizens of this country and the world.  We've allowed narrow curriculum to develop whose primary goal is qualifying enough students to pass a standardized test.  We, now call this education.

The English teacher eager to give the student's background information, stated that the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1865.  This didn't seem to jibe with what I remembered of the Civil War so I looked it up.  The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863.  The date does matter in a system based on having the right answer, a teacher being wrong is a big deal.  In a system, in which teachers serve as guides, as role models for learning, and show students were to begin their search for answers, it isn't as important.  In such a system, learning how to find answers, how to reason, how to question is more important than having a bunch of facts that one can regurgitate on tests. 

The education our children receive is to prepare them for the future.  They are tomorrow's caretakers of us and of the planet.   Education matters.  It doesn't have to be the boring, drudgery it's been turned into.  There is a world beyond numbers, beyond words.  It's a world of outside-the-box-anything-goes thinking. It's vibrant and alive and waits our discovery.  Too many of us don't even know it's out there.  What students aren't learning will come back to haunt all of us.  An ignorant populace is more easily manipulated.  Ignorance sets the stage for great injustice.  What seems the "easy way" will end up costing society so much more. 

Today, a door opened.  It's time to step through it.  It's time to allow education to really reach people.  It's time to allow education to enrich all our lives.  It's time to allow the world to become a better place because we have learned the lessons our past is eager to teach us.  It's time to make education relevant and meaningful.