education

Telling Teenagers that Revising Rocks

On Monday, I had the opportunity to talk to a writing class in my school about the feedback/revising process. I’d been talking to the English teacher at department meeting last week about some revisions I was about to get started on, and she said, “Oh, please, can you come to my Composition classes and talk about how that works for you?” (I’m talking to the second class this afternoon.)

Turns out some of the kids get very reticent, uptight, and defensive when it comes to criticism and making changes in their work. Some feel like it’s not theirs anymore if they make the changes suggested by their teacher. Some say straight-up, “But I want it to sound this way, not that way.”

It’s always fun to get out of my classroom and say, “Hey, look at me pretending I’m NOT a math teacher!” So I threw together an entertaining little PowerPoint and headed over. (It helped that with my teeny-tiny school, there were only five kids in the class—not so nervous-making.)

The kids were good and engaged, and honest about their feelings. Through the presentation and ensuing discussion, we came to two key points.

I told them about one of my critique partners (Mindy McGinnis, yo), and noted that just because she suggests something doesn’t mean I have to make that exact change. Or any change. And if I choose not to, it doesn’t mean she’s going to scream at me and stomp her feet and never ever EVER talk to me again.

Same goes for the teenagers and their English teacher. We discussed that some feedback is the Just Fix It kind—errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, or facts. But the really valuable feedback is the Ponder and Figure It Out kind—when passages are boring, awkward, confusing, or annoying. Suggestions on how to fix those issues are just that—suggestions.

And that leads us to the second point:

This was just part of a little scenario I put together. Mindy notes something doesn’t work and offers suggestions X, Y, and Z for fixing it. I go ahead with X, work in Z-with-a-twist, and come up with Q all on my own. When I run it by Mindy, she knows I didn’t use Y, but that’s okay—she says, “Yeah, Q totally works.”

Surprisingly, the group kind of latched onto that concept (teasing me about bringing mathematical variables to English class). Some of the students had been stuck in a mindset that the teacher’s word was law, so her suggestions had to be followed to the letter. Thus their feeling that the writing wasn’t theirs anymore.

Through the discussion, we kept coming back to, “And there’s that situation where you need to find your Q—find a way to modify it to address the problem the teacher pointed out, but that still stays true to your voice and characters and story.”

These reactions and mindsets aren’t unique to teenagers, or to those who write only because they have to for school. Those of us who want to (or do) write professionally go through cycles of the same thing, I think.

I don’t care who you are—finding out something you thought was great doesn’t work can sting. I think a key part of my presentation was when I admitted to the students that I’ve gotten feedback where my initial feelings were all, “I suck! The story sucks. There’s no way I change that in a way that will work. I’m too stupid.”

Feeling that isn’t a problem—as long as we take the next step, which is rolling up our sleeves and getting to work.

Like I told them, you don’t wipe some mud off a car and call it polished. Polishing takes time and effort.

And like Mindy added, exercise doesn’t necessarily feel good (or look glamorous) while you’re doing it, but the results feel great.

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Math Rant: Yes, Elementary Teachers, Math is in Your Job Description

Yikes, long time, no post. Not the first time it’s happened, but hopefully the last, because I’ve finally figured out a posting “schedule” that I think will work for me. What do you think?

You know I love my alliteration. Hopefully I can keep thinking of fitting topics each week.

So, that makes this a Mathematical Monday, and we have another math-rant. First, a disclaimer. Some elementary teachers are awesome. Some don’t match anything I’m about to say. I hope we get more of those.

Here are some actual quotes I’ve heard from elementary teachers.

“I hate math.”

“I wish I didn’t have to teach math.”

“I was lousy at math in school, but I figure elementary math is easy, so I can teach that.”

I have yet to hear an elementary teacher say they hate reading, wish they didn’t have to teach reading, or are lousy at reading. Many elementary teacher training programs are heavy on the literacy courses, and light (or non-existent) on the math pedagogy.

Don’t get me wrong. Reading and writing are hugely important. (Hello, I’m a writer!) But so is math. Even if a student will never have to divide fractions or graph a linear equation once they leave school, the associated thinking skills are valuable no matter what they do in life. They need a good math education to develop those skills of logic, problem solving, and number sense.

And guess what—when the teacher doesn’t like math, the kids know it. Doesn’t matter if the teacher doesn’t explicitly say so. It comes across.

It’s socially acceptable to say you’re bad at math, but this is something that needs to change, especially with the way technology is developing so rapidly these days. It used to be only the elite knew how to read, and now no one wants to admit being bad readers. (And yes, we need to keep working on ways to help those who have difficulty reading.) It’s time for math skills to have the same status, and it starts with those who are role models for the teeny-tiny kids—both parents and teachers.

Okay, rant over. Now I can get back to looking for ways to bolster the math skills of the elementary teachers at my school so they can stop making excuses. 😉

Are you a math-phobe? What led to you feeling that way? If you’re a math-lover, how did that happen?

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Maturity is Eating Your Vegetables

** This presumes you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like vegetables. I’m not that kind of person. I rather like most vegetables. But it’s a metaphor. Just go with it. **

When you’re a little kid (who doesn’t like vegetables), your parents know you should eat veggies, but you don’t care. You don’t care that they’re good for you. You don’t care about those wonderful vitamins and all they can do for you. You don’t care about the nasty things that can happen if you have a deficiency of those vitamins. You only care about how marshmallows and popsicles are better than asparagus and broccoli, just because they are.

Our parents bribe, cajole, and threaten us so we eat our carrots and Brussels sprouts. At some point, though, we accept that we really can’t live on Pop Rocks and root beer. We really ought to eat those things that came out of dirt. Once we open our minds to them, we may even find they’re not so bad.

This is one of many cool things about teaching teenagers—and no, I’m not really talking about diet and nutrition.

With the ages I teach—and particularly because I’ve stuck with many students over several years—I get to see a lot of them making transitions to self-aware maturity. The kid who used to blow off everything academic starting to take things more seriously, even looking back and saying he wished he’d buckled down earlier so he could’ve learned more. The girl who voluntarily comes in during lunch for extra help, even though we both know she’d rather be chatting with friends than torturing herself with math.

I don’t get to see the transition for all of them. Some come to me with a very grounded worldview already in place. Some leave my class still thinking life will be a party—they’ll put it together later … or maybe not. (I’m pretty sure some on-paper adults are still patently immature.) But when I do see it, it’s very cool.

A current example: If you recall, I teach deaf kids. That means they all have IEPs (Individualized Education Plans, required for any kid with special ed services). This month has been IEP season at my school, so we sit down for a meeting with each kid (and a parent or two) and discuss where they’re at, where they want to go, and what they need to do to get there.

Most teenagers are counting down the days to graduation. “Come June of (name-the-year), I’m outta here!” My students are generally no different. Technically, though, they can stay with us until the year they turn twenty-two. Most shudder at the thought.

But then some of them take a realistic look at their goals. Maybe they want to go to college, and they look at their reading and writing levels. Not good enough … but right in a range where an extra year of high school, really working on it, could make the difference. And they say, “Yeah, I think I should learn more so I’m ready, because college is hard.”

That’s not just going for the carrots—that’s reaching for a big scoop of the whole vegetable medley.

I love that moment.

And I’ll keep trying my best to make those veggies tasty.

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Reading Spree: Conquering the TBR Mountain

Last week, on a whim, I made a little poster and put it up in my classroom. It’s my TBR (To Be Read) Mountain. There are seventeen books on it, and my stated goal is to finish them all before the end of 2011.

Yeah. Seventeen of them. During the school year. And while working on writing stuff at the same time.

Good thing I’m a fast reader. Double-good thing I have a full week off at Thanksgiving.

I posted it so my students could see me setting reading goals, and they’ll be able to watch my progress as I note the date I complete each book on the poster. Hopefully it’ll be a fun little side thing to talk about in class … y’know, other than common denominators, derivatives, and quadratic functions.

While I’m at it, I might as well make my goals even more public, so here’s the list and the little bit of progress so far (in no particular order other than the order my brain remembers them since I’m not at school):

1. Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness—finished 9/30
2. Goliath by Scott Westerfeld—finished 10/5
3. The Curse of the Wendigo by Rick Yancey
4. The Isle of Blood by Rick Yancey
5. Everlost by Neal Shusterman
6. Everwild by Neal Shusterman
7. Everfound by Neal Shusterman
8. The Death Cure by James Dashner
9. The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan—finished 10/13
10. The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan—finished 10/17
11. Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Fallon
12. Dark Inside by Jeyn Roberts
13. The Slayer Chronicles: First Kill by Heather Brewer
14. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie—finished 10/10
15. Crossed by Ally Condie
16. Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick—finished 10/7
17. Possession by Elana Johnson

And really, I’m just impressed that I remembered all 17 titles.

We’ll see how this goes.

Do you guys have any reading goals?

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Math Rant: College Professors

The subject of this particular rant is a few years behind me, but the effects linger. And now, the horrors are being inflicted on my former students, and it’s enough to make me want to inflict something of my own—a forceful *headdesk* on the perpetrators.

Through my undergrad and graduate schooling, I encountered a number of college mathematics professors. Here are two facts:

#1 Many of them are absolutely brilliant mathematicians.

#2 Hardly any of them can teach to save their lives.

I even had a few classmates who were likely to join their ranks in the future. Kids who could do multi-variable calculus without breaking a sweat and thought abstract algebra was a great weekend activity. Kids who could not teach it.

Make no mistake. Doing math and teaching math are two entirely different skill sets. Thing is, the teaching skill requires the doing skill, and then some. (Do I get tetchy with the old “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach” line? Don’t get me started.)

A former student came by to visit the school the other day and we chatted about how her first semester at a new college is going. Because she has issues with test-taking, she didn’t do so hot on her placement exam, which landed her in a math class that’s dirt-simple for her. She understands the material, but then the teacher goes and confuses her by insisting she use his methods, which she didn’t understand. She tried to ask a question to clarify, and he cut her off.

Okay, this particular girl is very assertive and kind of blunt, so maybe she could have handled the exchange better. I don’t know—I wasn’t there. Then there’s the fact that he tried to hold her interpreter back after class to talk to the interpreter about the student needing an attitude adjustment. (Grr… don’t get me started on that, either. That’s a rant for another time.)

Bottom line, this student didn’t expect the same kind of bend-over-backwards-to-help teaching she got in high school. She just wanted to understand.

If there’s one thing I remember about several of my college math classes, it was the clear undercurrent: If you don’t understand the magic I’m performing on this blackboard, it’s your own fault, because you must be too stupid to grasp it. No one ever said it in words, but you felt it.

Thankfully, they’re not all like that. I found a handful who didn’t just want to get their teaching hours out of the way so they could get back to their “real” work. The kind you could ask a question, and they didn’t just repeat their last two statements. They elaborated on the in-between step, or what justified some conclusion.

If you find college math professors like that, add them to your Christmas card list for life. They’re rare, but they’re also golden.

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Math Rant: Subtraction

This will not be a rant about how even some kids in advanced math classes have to count on their fingers to subtract (or add). I’ll save that one for another time. (For the record, with deaf kids “counting on fingers” is fairly equivalent to tapping on the desk and counting in your head.)

No, this rant is about the failure of someone (or several someones) earlier along the line failing to address both types of subtraction.

Two types of subtraction? Whatever are you talking about, Miss Lewis?

Yes, two types.

If you think of beginner’s subtraction, what do you think of? Probably the idea of “take away.” Johnny has 10 apples, and Jimmy takes 4 of them away. How many does Johnny have left?

Nothing wrong with that. Totally valid interpretation of subtraction. But it’s not the only one, dagnabbit!

There is also the HOW FAR perspective. And I don’t have the stats to prove it, but my gut says this is the more frequently useful angle in real life.

Take the problem 11 minus 8. Here’s what I see over and over in my classroom:

*holds 11 on one hand, then starts counting off on the other*

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3. I counted 8 places before 11, and the answer is 3.

Why? WHY? Even if you must count, here’s all it takes:

*hold 11 on one hand, start counting off on the other*

10, 9, 8. I’ve arrived at 8 and it took 3 steps to do it, so the answer is 3.

To me, this says these kids were taught a procedure for subtracting and memorized it without really going deeper. So I need to dig in and do some remodeling in their heads.

Even better is when they see 11 – 8 on the paper and borrow. So the tens place becomes zero and the ones place becomes … 11. Fortunately, that’s a little more rare.

*sigh*

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