Math and feminism

We learned all about the federal documents that students with disabilities have in "Inclusion" today. This week we'll be seeing a lot of examples of IEPs (Individualized Education Plan) and associated documents. I can't remember its official name but today we went over how students with disabilities begin planning for their futures when they're 14. While Dr. G points out a lot of the faults in the federal and local systems, it seems really well-designed to me. Even as someone of my generation, it occurs to me that at one point, students didn't have this. I think it's really cool that as soon as students are 14, their education can be tailored to the most important skills they need. There are also government programs for kids up to age 22 where they can work in some capacity for a company and receive a stipend. The example Dr. G gave was a greeter at Walmart. It might take a student with disabilities time to learn how to greet people appropriately and the earlier that student identifies a goal, the earlier work can begin on getting there because it will take extra time. It is very individualized, but to me that's the coolest part. These kids can learn real-life skills in school. The goal is always self-sufficiency. So sometimes it's learning how to tie shoes or count change or do dishes or whatever. But I just think it's really amazing that the goal is self-sufficiency and it seems like a really practical approach to get there. If the best they can do is live in a group home, then you shoot for that. If a realistic goal is college, you shoot for that. I really enjoyed the class because it really just made me admire the disabilities programs we have in the US. I know we have a long way to go but they're really pretty sophisticated. Anything we can do to make quality of life better for everyone, including people with disabilities, the less we are going to have to worry about providing other services (ie: for homeless, poverty, ER health care) and the better it makes us as human beings that make up the US, I think.

In "Content Literacy" Matt brought in his 2 yr old boy which was really adorable. We had to cut class short since we were a little limited by the distraction of the very adorable and sometimes crying child. However, it was enough to get the gears of my brain turning a little bit.

We've been reading this book on incorporating math and literacy, which definitely has its challenges. However I've really enjoyed parts of the book that explain how to talk about math problems as a class. There's this theory that kids need to be shown how to think as they read, and the same could go for problem-solving and reading in math. So as a teacher you model your metacognition and think-aloud your strategies as you read. These are things all literate adults do--you just don't realize you do it. Summarize, clarify, connect, predict, question, visualize, infer. I think there are some additional strategies for math reading as well. I'm also really enamored with this idea of teaching kids how to use their textbooks. I didn't know how to use a math textbook until college. I think it will be important to model how I would read a part of a textbook, ie: read-aloud and think-aloud through a paragraph before an example, make some notes while I do it, and show that it is different from English reading. It's dense, it's harder, it takes longer. There are more concepts in a smaller amount of space. There are different expectations. I want to make textbooks less scary. Because math textbooks were always scary to me until recently. That can give kids a lot of confidence. I would also walk through an example and how I would use it, covering up the next steps and trying to guess or predict what the next steps will be. Then I would do the problem before looking at how they do it and check my answer. I would also show how this can be used for homework.

So I think that's really exciting.

I really want to write about something that came up last week and I didn't cover last week. On Wednesday I shared an article with the class. We had this activity called "Journal Club" in "Content Literacy." I think our instructor got the idea from his wife, who is a doctor. She regularly gets together with her team of doctors and they review scholarly articles relevant to their field. So we applied that and we are doing that with education. We had little math groups that we discussed these articles with. So we each brought in 2 articles. I was really excited by my second one, which was about "single-sex" high school girls' math and science classrooms. The study was done in Ontario, Canada based off of research over all of North America pointing to the fact that women are underrepresented in the math and science fields. I never would have really guessed this, but I guess girls' experiences with math and science in high school really can have a profound effect on the rest of their lives and careers. I think the hope is that through studies like this and experiments like this, girls can find more of their niche in the math and science world. The study was also prompted by the fact that girls are not called on as often as boys in these subject classes, they have less talk time, and they are not held to the same standards for shouting out versus hand-raising. To be completely honest, I notice these issues at play today in my Master's level classrooms. As a broad generalization, men speak out more in my cohort and they yell out more often as opposed to raising their hands. I don't feel necessarily robbed of any educational experience. Thankfully I am a grown woman and learned from my women's studies classes about how to assert myself. However, I know I am out of my element here in Boston and it's not a place like Portland, Oregon where everybody's automatically a feminist and very knowledgeable about all kinds of issues. As I've learned from what my classmates sometimes say about disabilities, this is not a very PC place! And in a way that's a true indicator of diversity, diversity of knowledge, awareness, and viewpoints. So it's good and I'm embracing it for what it is. So in any case I'm glad I got to present that article and it made me think a lot about the specific struggles girls have with math. What was interesting about this study is that it showed that women did better in the single-sex classrooms in terms of achievement and the way they perceived their competence. However, the girls still struggled with some attitudes towards math, like they didn't look forward to it as much as boys generally do and they put way more effort into math in the single-sex room than girls did in co-ed environments or than boys did in general. I'm not sure if there are some parts of math that are more challenging for girls naturally or if there are some societal issues at play here. It's not so sexy for a girl to be good at math or something, is my guess. It could also be limitations of the study.

As a previous gender studies major, I hope to be sensitive to any gender/sexuality issues at play in my classroom. I really hope my experiences and studies will serve me. I also hope it will remind me to be open to new information and to remember that although I know my own perspective as a woman and I've read about other perspectives, there are a lot of perspectives I don't know! It behooves me to learn about others and help them advocate for themselves in new ways that they need too.

Integrating math, literacy, special ed, ELL, etc, etc

I'm starting to really itch to get in the classrooms. I think we all are. The time's a gettin nearer!

Yesterday I had some internet troubles and didn't get to update but class was very exciting. Dr. G gave a faux math lesson to show examples of how one could give accommodations and modifications to special ed students in what's called an "Inclusion" model classroom--where special ed kids are mixed in with general ed kids instead of in a separate classroom entirely. I really like the Inclusion model, although I'm sure it's difficult in practice...it makes a statement that we are all in this together and people with disabilities live among us and we all have to learn to work together. As Dr. G says, these people with disabilities will be, and are, our co-workers, friends, employers, etc. So learning skills now to interact and accommodate is important!! It was mostly funny just to have a flashback to high school...when else do you get a "fake" high school lesson? It was funny. It was fun. It made me think about teaching a little, about how I would explain things more simply. Because our most recent school is college, it's hard to think in high school language. I have a feeling I may be tempted to make things more complicated than necessary.

"Content Literacy" has been a little challenging because literacy and math have a different kind of relationship than the other subjects. I found myself reminded of my old high school math teacher's experimental project of giving us a pop math article to read and respond to in an essay form. He talked it over with the honor's English teacher and they made it a fun sort of experiment. We talked about how writing about different content areas in English is really ideal because the goal of English is that you have to write anyway...whereas in Math you have to find all these "sneaky" ways to tuck things in. Like this book we are reading suggests having a word wall of math vocab words, have talking exercises where kids talk over math strategies with a partner, make their own graphic organizers where they explain problem-solving steps, etc. It really made me realize how math is like a different language--that's why it has special implications for ELL and even special ed kids. The fact that it doesn't involve written English as much makes me kind of want to capitalize on that to get everyone on the same page. So I'm sure my opinions will evolve over time. I like the idea though of teaching kids how to use textbooks--covering up the answers of the examples and trying the problems themselves before they move onto the next step, etc.

There is definitely more to reflect on but I'm starting to feel like I can't write complete sentences so I'll have to get back at it tomorrow! Gotta love night class. :)

Acceptance

I had a friend in college who was really accepting and she said she got it from her mother. This friend of mine expressed "acceptance" in a way I had never seen before. When she hears a new piece of information, she really hears it. She doesn't reject it or ignore it. It's hard to explain. She's accepting in a way that leads me to believe that I bet she learns really quickly. She's so open to new things that it allows her to move on to the next thing where others might be stuck.

I find it really inspiring. We've all been in situations where we hold ourselves up by trying not to acknowledge the truth. And as cheesy as it sounds, the more I am able to see and recognize truth, the more successful I will be in Boston Public school district. My instructors give examples of things I never would have thought of. A student may be acting strange because they can only see in one eye, or because they got lupus and missed all of middle school. Tonight Dr. G said that many students come into high school without ever graduating middle school. She talked about how she once had a class half made up of students who could only speak Spanish and had never been in a classroom before and half made up of students who were trying to test into honor's courses for the next year--in English. I was just in awe. I think she said that she even had a para-professional special ed specialist who also couldn't speak English. She emphasized the need to just work with what you have. She made the analogy of how she as an administrator has to work with what she has as a staff, we are imperfect too. This Fall my cohort and I may be surprised by all kinds of crazy situations that seem impossible to effectively teach in. And I guess we just have to accept it. Because the sooner we accept it, the sooner we're going to be able to move forward and do something about it.

Education just ain't what it used to be

I definitely picked up a theme in today's classes. Things ain't what they used to be. Thankfully, the realm of education is a rapidly evolving world. I think teachers were saying things like that to me when I was in gradeschool. "We don't teach like they used to." It's only natural. It's crazy to think just how many ground-breaking changes have occurred in my lifetime like the internet and the prevalent use of cell phones.

When I was born, Autism was a new thing. Now, that generation of discovered autistic kids are maturing to adulthood, so Dr. G says. These kids are turning 19 and 20 and we have no idea what to do with them. I think it's really interesting too that this is a "newer" disease. Is it really just "new" or is it like depression in the way that it occurred for a long time but never had a name or was talked about? Maybe I'll find out when the group researching Autism presents.

In "Inclusion" we talked about how elite public schools don't know what to do with their autistic students. There are 3 public schools in Boston you have to test into and they are very competitive. Children with Asberger's can often do very well in school but struggle with social cues in ways that would disrupt a classroom. So these kids test into the school and all of a sudden they're just there in these competitive schools. Some of these schools have been around for 50 or even 200 years because it's New England and it's Boston. One thing I have learned about this place is that history runs deep. History is an overpowering force when it comes to so many things--mainly politics and governance and how it effects life out here. And people just feel set in their ways and traditions. The default of doing things as they have been done is often easier than change. Which I find funny in a place they call the "Athens of the US," with all these educational institutions. Such an interesting blend.

So Dr. G talked about how these schools are having to change their culture and their approach to working with kids. These kids with Asberger's need accommodations like there haven't been before. Even if there were intelligent and successful blind and deaf people in such competitive high schools, they would be given the same "sink or swim" treatment as everyone else. Yet, with student's with Asberger's, they are physically unable to do things we think of as within their control. Say, for example, a student with Asberger's has to walk along a certain line of floor pattern to get out the door. If a bully steps in front of them on the line, that student with Asberger's literally *cannot* move around the bully. They are physically incapable of it. They need those routines and they need those idiosyncracies. After all, the brain commands the body, and the brains of people with Asberger's are clearly just different from ours. I think this is really important to understand because I could see how people would expect that person with Asberger's to adjust or treat them with scorn, cynicism, or going all control freak. The good news is we now have more information about the disease and its symptoms and can therefore understand and accommodate such individuals.

I am also learning that Boston is not such a P.C. place. It is incredibly diverse. There is that whole liberal culture here, yes. But there is also the mean grit of the city and it is full of all different types. I have to admit, I am actually shocked and sometimes appalled by what my classmates sometimes say about disabilities. I think it's important to question accommodations and modifications we make for those with disabilities because the proof is in the pudding. Historically, when we first started making accommodations for students with disabilities, the pendulum swung the other way and suddenly things were better for kids with disabilities than they were for regular ed students and that's not fair either. So that balance is important and it's important to question. But it's also a sensitive topic. And I guess I just feel like I was raised with an understanding that some people are different. Some people have handicaps. Some people are gay. Some people are just weird. And they all have a place in society. I could go even further, but I'll stop there. These concepts I thought were commonplace, like making accommodations for people with disabilities and making sure they aren't being bullied (even if they don't realize they are being bullied, because some kids with these disorders don't) are things that are questionable to some of my peers. And I guess I should start accepting it. I probably had a really good education and exposure to how to treat people with disabilities and from all my work with mentoring and based on my nurturing approach I think that maintaining peace in the classroom and making sure everyone feels safe is just a no-brainer. And while members of my cohort would probably agree on those last two points, the "how" may differ. I once heard a mom say that new moms often think there's only one right way to do things and they don't realize there can be more than one way. I imagine the same could be true for teaching. Rather than judging my peers, I hope to see the questioning as healthy and understand that I may sometimes disagree with others' teaching methods but there is also more than one way.

In "Content Literacy" we also discussed how teaching has become more dynamic than it used to be. Teachers put more effort into making things interesting and engaging for the kids. Activities are designed so that kids have 3-dimensional interactions with the text, like bringing in celery if celery is mentioned in the story to pass around so everyone can feel it. You're getting tactile senses involved. There's modeling metacognition so students can learn about the reading process from you. There's pre-reading activities so that kids learn about words they may struggle with before they even struggle with them. There's post-reading activities that are creative. It's crazy. And yet it makes so much sense. The kind of reading strategies we are learning about weave the classroom into this sort of web where no one gets left behind and no one falls between the cracks. Or at least, struggling readers are identified early on so that they can receive the help that they need. I think it's really cool. I just hope to come up with ways it can be used for math.

I feel my confidence level increasing--in terms of walking into Dorchester and teaching kids in the Fall. I feel confident because we're all doing this together and it's started to boost me a little bit. It's nice to get to know other math interns at my high school. I'm beginning to see their strengths and get to know their personalities. I think we're all starting to get a little excited for the Fall.

Week 3

Ok so I was kinda bad last week about posting. I have some notes from the classes I can go back and reflect on when I have a little more time. For now I'll just take a moment to reflect on the classes.

In "Inclusion" we discussed Autism and how to make accommodations and modifications for a student on the autistic spectrum. Being a math teacher, I think the connection between students with Asberger's and skills in mathematics is really interesting. As Dr. G discussed how students with Asberger's like learning about maps, globes, and routes because they tend to be regular and consistent, I thought that was really interesting. It's really pretty amazing in a way that what is often seen as a deficit (a student with Asberger's inflexibility) is actually really beautiful. What that student is trying to do is anchor themselves in something grounded and real in this world that doesn't change. I think we all have our own ways of doing that and I think that was part of Dr. G's point--we all have our quirks, some are just more pronounced than others.

Dr. G's daughter spoke to the class about her work with autistic children, which was also interesting. She gave the advice to be patient and not to give up on the chid. I really admire that she's passionate about what she does and I can't imagine how much she's learned. I think my biggest take-away from her talk and much of this class is that it's important to teach in "preventative" measures as well as being in the present. From my (little) experience teaching, it's helpful to put some space between some students if possible if you anticipate them setting each other off or distracting each other from class. I think accommodating for students with disabilities could be a lot like this--just about knowing their behaviors and personalities and anticipating their needs and how they are going to act and interact with other students. We will be working on some lesson plans soon for the course, and I'm sure that will give me much more to think about.

We also have case studies for the course, which I hope to get a lot out of. They're written in a 3rd person omniscient form, focusing on the point of view of the teacher. I guess the idea is that usually the teacher could have done something to prevent the problematic situation with the student from occurring. It's a little nerve-wracking to read because I can easily see myself in their position as a new teacher or a teacher trying to do their best. It's amazing how much these exercises make me appreciate my parents and anyone who ever taught me.

Speaking of nerve-wracking, I think I'm starting to get a little more confident about my teaching and the challenges I am up against. I think it helps that we are forming a sort of community and we are getting a lot out of our time with our instructors. Also, we talked about confidence and teaching today in "Content Literacy." Confidence comes from knowing your subject area and knowing how to teach but it also comes from casting away your doubts and fears. It's no surprise that teachers who are more confident do better in terms of reaching kids. So I hope to learn to take that on just as much as I'm taking on the idea of being "harder" out here on the East Coast. :)