Too Legit to Quit

I love teaching math. I get a natural high out of explaining something as clearly as possible, especially if my audience seems to “get it.” And coming up with the explanation itself, and examples to back it up, is all part of that system-construction my “Architect” personality is purportedly so keen on. I especially love capitalizing on impromptu teaching moments. This week we have been “TEAM” teaching to a group of our peers and a different veteran teacher evaluator each day. Well, today, one of my *students* came up with a different way to simplify a radical in the denominator than another student had presented on the board. A Spanish teacher, she was unsure of her answer, but I encouraged her and asked her to write her work on the board anyway so we could have a discussion about it. Well it turns out that she had gotten a “different” answer just because she had not rationalized the denominator. Both students were right. She got a self-esteem boost, and the rest of the class got to see more than one approach. I got to teach them how it was okay to be different “as long as you follow the rules.” In short, everybody wins. I love moments like that.

I realize I may not be the most entertaining teacher that ever stepped into a classroom. I never sing or dance or tell "harmless" lies about the snake that lives in my desk drawer or how my baby son lives in a dumpster out back because “that’s where the food is.” I try to be good-humored, but I hardly ever crack a joke, and once or twice, my observers have even commented on my supposed lack of voice inflection. But on the flipside, my observers have more often praised my calm, controlled, and no-nonsense persona in the classroom. In fact, Jaws (inventor of above-mentioned lies) today commented to our group how I was not dancing around, raising my voice, or “clown” teaching, yet somehow managed to keep the class engaged just on the strength of my lesson, direct as was. Well, I like to think my love—my deep respect and appreciation, really—for my subject comes through in how I teach. My students may not like math a lot of times, and they may not even like me, but by golly, as far as I can help it, they will at least learn something. And treat it and us and everything and everyone with respect. That’s all I ask.

Personally, I am not a big fan of rubrics. In their worst form, such as the one used for our grades in this demo-teaching, rubrics reduce evaluation to the ticking off a checklist, an empasis on form as opposed to a holistic evaluation of overall quality and effectiveness. For instance, most any experienced math teacher will probably tell you that a plethora of examples is absolutely necessary in teaching math. However, for these evaluations, I receive a much better grade by cutting short my examples for the questionable value of restating my objectives for the umpteenth time, and so on, going through the motions so my evaluator can check off whatever she needs to on that little form. Now I do think there is some value to wrapping up a lesson at the end, but there has to be some middle ground. Teaching the body of the lesson effectively is a lot more important in my opinion than always leaving enough time before the bell to sum it all up.

Furthermore, rubrics do not magically remove subjectivity from the evaluation process. Our evaluators this week have demonstrated that. For instance, I got docked one time for “subject matter knowledge” just because I did not refer to the origin as the ordered pair (0,0) instead of just “zero,” when in fact I was only talking about the x-axis at the time and had not even started talking about the y-axis yet. I mean, give me a break! Was it really so confusing? Do you think I graduated with a math degree—and received a Certificate of Excellence for the Praxis II exam—and still do not know what (0,0) means? Jesus.

My worst experience this week came when I conducted a little “debate” in Ms. L’s classroom concerning whether imaginary numbers really “exist” or not. Well, she was not amused, to say the least. She really tore into me, told me I had not taught to my objectives at all, said that it was worthless even to attempt a debate unless you spend half the term preparing for it, etc. She basically left me with two impressions: (1) Terrible, terrible lesson. (2) Never, ever, try to pull that shit again. Then, a thought of my own: (3) What a vicious, opinionated woman! I mean, she even went so far as to tell me I did “not teach anything.” Frankly, witnesses would probably agree that I "caught the brunt of it," and to me, her attitude seemed almost personal. Another classmate after lunch turned up late and ill-prepared, and her words toward that were actually gentler than she was toward me! Well obviously that was pretty hard to take. I was really quite proud of my lesson that day, and she made me feel ashamed of it. One of my classmates told me today that she had really liked my idea for the debate and did not agree with Ms. L at all. That helps me feel a bit better.

I do think it was a good lesson idea, if perhaps challenging for the students and arguably ill-timed or overly ambitious for a single class period. Risky, in other words, and in this imperfect world of rubrics, it would seem that risk never goes unpunished. However, I do think there is a lot of value in students conducting their own higher-order thinking as much as possible, which is the whole purpose of holding an informal debate, even when their understanding of the topic is unsteady to say the least. We got down to what makes a number a number, and we had people arguing about what infinity means and whether you can fit pi onto the number line, and so on and so forth. Which is the whole point. Imaginary numbers are not really that difficult. The hardest part about them is just the concept, and our natural tendency to reject ideas that challenge our flat-earth notions of what is and is not. Imaginary numbers, after all, seem made-up and, well, “imaginary.” It is hard to see where they come from or what good they do. In short, it is hard to believe in them. And that was the point of the lesson—to open minds. Is that really NOT TEACHING???

Sorry for the rant. I do love teaching. And I do want to be the best teacher I can be. But the rest is just nonsense.

By the way, last night’s pity party was by no means a hint that yours truly is remotely considering dropping out of Teacher Corps. Where else would I even go? No, just like Peace Corps, I am here for the two years at least, no matter what. By “temporary,” I just meant two years in Mississippi instead of, say, five. But what an embarrassing drool of self-pity, huh? At least it was honest. Basically what you get after two or three illicit beers alone in the dorm room while my neighbors are presumably out on the town, chatting as they will and casually making fun of their missing classmates’ social awkwardnesses in various cafes. Anyway, it helped me understand the emotional commitment I feel toward buying this house, even as time grows short and my potential roommate understandably begins to look for somewhere else to live. It lays it out for all to see what caused me to hesitate about coming to Mississippi in the first place. The way I see it, if I felt afraid of the loneliness, surely someone else has felt or will feel the same thing. So why not be the first to admit it? Don’t get me wrong, I really, really like most of my classmates. But none of them are my soul mate so far. And our age difference is not nothing. I still think about what’s her name, can picture her making love to her new-found what’s his name all Saturday mornings in Seattle. Painful. And lonely.

But teaching is good.