Each September I give my students a general survey to fill out, and two of the questions I ask them are about what subjects did they like most and least the previous year and describe why.
Responses vary. Being middle school students, it's never any surprise that they enjoy the Explorations subjects (music, physical education, art, etc), and my new students are no exception. But this year what is a surprise is how many students wrote down math as their least liked subject.
There are always a few students each year who indicate that they didn't enjoy math, but this year almost half the students in both of my core classes wrote it down. Half! Reasons included:
- I didn't really get it
- It was hard
- I didn't get a very good grade
- I'm not good at it
This past week I've been doing some exploration type activities, to see what kinds of patterns they find, what sort of things they notice, circulating and chatting with them as they work, having class discussions where they can volunteer to go up to the whiteboard or the overhead projector and explain their ideas. As the week went on, there were more and more volunteers.
And the thing is, they are good at it, they do get it.
This dichotomy between their perception of their abilities and the reality of what they can do just breaks my heart.
Every year I start off with the goal of having math classes where all students realise that math is theirs, that it's interesting and enjoyable. Every year I get worn down at some point (by external factors that perhaps I'll describe at another time) and find myself being more, uh, let's say "traditional" in my approach. Sometimes I rebound, sometimes I don't.
May this be the year that I make it all the way til the end of June.
