During my seventh period ESL stand-alone class yesterday, one of my students walked in bubbly and excited as usual. She sat down and said, “So Ms. Hubbard, a funny thing happened in Math today.” We work on her English and social studies in my class but she struggles with math and often asks a fellow student who loves math to help reexplain difficult concepts to her. These two students are friends but often a horrible pair when it comes to math. He gets so frustrated and tells her “it’s so easy” and she gets angry and retorts “for you!”
She is a shy-seeming student at first but is never afraid to speak her mind. I know her struggles with math so I could only imagine what happened in math that morning.
“So we’re graphing inequalities and learning about how to do it. So I raised my hand and said I had a question.”
My first reaction was pride. I thought how glad I was she was speaking up and asking for help. But as I saw the smirk on her face, I realized her question was not to clarify the content.
“So my math teacher called on me and I said ‘what’s the point of this?’"
I thought of the poor math teacher who I’m sure gets this question all the time but smiled and thought of the many times I thought this in my head during my own math classes. She told me her teacher explained how the concept is relevant to as she so eloquently put it “something in finance something.”
I told her I was glad the teacher had an answer and she agreed.
This was a funny moment as teachers often hate this question but it does make you think about how we do need kids to understand the why in what we teach. I’m not sure how my students' comment came across to her math teacher but I don’t blame her for asking the question.
She is a shy-seeming student at first but is never afraid to speak her mind. I know her struggles with math so I could only imagine what happened in math that morning.
“So we’re graphing inequalities and learning about how to do it. So I raised my hand and said I had a question.”
My first reaction was pride. I thought how glad I was she was speaking up and asking for help. But as I saw the smirk on her face, I realized her question was not to clarify the content.
“So my math teacher called on me and I said ‘what’s the point of this?’"
I thought of the poor math teacher who I’m sure gets this question all the time but smiled and thought of the many times I thought this in my head during my own math classes. She told me her teacher explained how the concept is relevant to as she so eloquently put it “something in finance something.”
I told her I was glad the teacher had an answer and she agreed.
This was a funny moment as teachers often hate this question but it does make you think about how we do need kids to understand the why in what we teach. I’m not sure how my students' comment came across to her math teacher but I don’t blame her for asking the question.
You make a great point and this moment is an excellent reminder for all of us to think about and know the "why."
ReplyDeleteGood for her!
ReplyDeleteIt's important for us to think about it. And it's good for students to ask. I like to get my students to think about why they are learning things too. It's interesting to hear what they have to say.
ReplyDelete