BAD Teacher!

When I was teaching, I had sort of a different philosophy than most high school math teachers, it would seem.

Ask any college-bound senior in high school today, what the formula for success is, and they will tell you it's remarkably easy. If you do the work, then you will get the grade.

The thing is, neither a senior-level college course, or life, works this way. Nor should it.

In life, and hopefully in any senior-level class in college worth a pound of salt, it's more like UNDERSTAND the main idea, and get the grade.

The impetus shifts, then, from "do like I do and you will be fine" , to "know what the hell you are doing, and why, and you will be fine.".

As usual, I credit the culture of standardized testing -- which has only gotten worse with Bush's No Child Left Behind -- with the emphasis being all wrong in American high schools today.

If your goal is to produce a bunch of mimickers who can successfully take a multiple-choice test… Then is it any wonder that our kids are graduating without ANY of the skills they are going to need to be successful at work?

The problem is magnified in math classes. So many of us struggled through them with little-to-no explanation of what the math was supposed to MEAN. And then, as now, when you asked your math teacher "When am I going to use this?" or "What is the point of doing a problem like this?", you got a fairly unsatisfactory answer.

This fact, that even your math teacher can't tell you when you would USE the math, makes students even more likely to become little trick monkeys instead of going for the real understanding. Where are you going to gain that understanding, if not in class?

Well, how does this happen? Where are these math teachers COMING from, that they can't answer a simple question like that?

I'll tell you! These teachers were the kids who always "aced" math with little or no instruction. Many of them never really cared for the WHY part of the math, but they saw what was done and could replicate it with great success.

Because they LIKED math, but didn't UNDERSTAND it, they went for an education in math in college… Where they again aced their classes, but were left to care or not, as the case may be, what the hell the math MEANT.

Upon graduating from college, these math students soon realized that, although they could DO the math, they didn't know what to do WITH the math. So, they went back to school and got a Masters in Education.

After having spent 16 or 17 years in a wholly educational environment, these math majors of course went into teaching. Most believed that it was going to be a piece of cake, since math was so easy.

And then, they were tasked not only with teaching kids who had previously struggled in math, but those who were actually curious as to WHY we study math.

So, in order to keep up their "numbers", these ill-equipped academians did one of two things. Either they failed miserably in teaching, got out, and found a nice retail job… OR they cracked down on the dumbasses they were given to teach, ruled with an iron fist, and said "DO WHAT I SAY BECAUSE I SAID SO!".

What a way to get people to learn.

Sadly, we have Teacher Cadets in our school system in Virginia. These are high school students who one day, want to become teachers themselves. And the vast majority, seem to have been the "Teacher's Pet" who always got the grades. These kids were told, on the basis of their ability to mimic and/or take test well in many cases, that they should think about a career in teaching.

These guys of course needed a recommendation, to get into the program. And the ones who got them, were always the A students. Who are not necessarily the kids for whom UNDERSTANDING is the prime focus.

I took exception to that, too. Only in a very quiet way.

Time and again, as a teacher, I would argue that we needed to include real-life examples of math problems that kids would see in the "Real World". Time and again, I would advance that if they kids understood what the math was FOR, they would understand the how so much better.

And time and again, I was told "We don't have TIME for that". Understanding is so very much secondary, in the American high school, to making the grade. And time and again, I was told that "If I had gone to school for education, I would understand…", or that if I wanted to deal with "applied" mathematics, I should just quit and go back to Engineering!

I'm not saying it was the regular, struggling, caring classroom teachers dumping this on me. This was the message that was hammered into me all the time, FROM THE VERY TOP.

It seemed to me that, in order to be successful as a TEACHER, you would have to forgo being a successful EDUCATOR. To this day, that idea haunts me. As cynical and horrific as it sounds, my best advice to anyone who wants to be a successful EDUCATOR is this: Become a parent. That is going to be your only opportunity, with kids under 18 anyway, to impart true learning and understanding.

I have to tell you, I think I made a terrible teacher. But I'd sure like to think that, based on my nominations from students for Awards, and the number of kids who have told me AFTER HIGH SCHOOL, how much I have helped them… Well, I'd really humbly like to think I was a decent Educator.

The thing is, it's really difficult to be both. In six years, I am not sure if I ever really found the way. I was close, but close is NOT good enough.

What I really want to know here is, who has had this type of teacher? The one who rules by fear and encourages you to mimic instead of understand?

And who has had that teacher who really tried to make you see the POINT?

I don't just mean in math, but in English. In History. In Science. Who took the time to explain that in any job, to be successful, you would need to COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY. Who tried to show you that, if you don't study History, you would have to reinvent the wheel instead of drawing on successful strategies from the past?

And what did each type of teacher mean to you, personally? How did they affect your achievement in school, and AFTER?

And even more, once you understand the distinction… WHO is dreaming of being a teacher (as opposed to an educator)? Surely no one we would want teaching our own children!

As strongly as I feel about this idea of UNDERSTANDING, I grant that I might just be a dumbs myself. I might be missing the point. It's happened in the past, and I'm sure it will again in the future.

But for right now… Can someone tell me, which way is what?