Re: math (in)competence

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 6:09 -0400 7/3/02, John S. Denker wrote:
> There's a message in there.  Possibly a very important message.
> The message is, alas, somewhat impressionistic, not 100% explicit.
> So the question remains, exactly what is this student expecting that
> she's not getting?  There is a golden opportunity to make progress
> here, by following up on this.  (There's also a big opportunity
> to mess up, for instance by getting defensive or combative, which
> would silence the student and shut down a very valuable communication
> channel.....)
>
> Also remember that for every student who speaks up, there may
> be 10 students who feel the same way but don't speak up.

> [snip]

> Get over it.  Now.  Students can smell fear.
> They can also smell disrespect.

John, you may have never said anything more true than these last two sentences.

With regard to speaking up, I can testify that, when a student asks a
question that may seem rather elementary (sometimes even stunning in
its indications of lack of understanding, although I do my best not
to show that reaction), and I look over the class, I inevitably see a
look of relief, clearly relief that the question they desperately
needed the answer to but were afraid to ask, on the faces of several
other students, often even a majority of the class. These questions
are often the signal that I need to stop and work to fill in some
serious gaps in the understanding of the whole class. If the question
seems an isolated one, I will arrange to work with the student to
take care of the problem individually.

As to fear and disrespect, I also agree. I also wonder why any
teacher would not respect their students. If they are not there to
help the students make of themselves something more than they are
now, why are they there at all? If they don't know enough to succeed
in that class, they need to be guided to the proper class.

On the other hand, it is well-known that community colleges are the
poor sisters of the educational system. They are not high schools,
where attendance is mandatory, but they are usually part of the
department of public instruction so they really don't fit with the
4-year colleges, either. The teachers usually are held to a similar
credentialling system to that of the secondary teachers, so often
their skills are not with the subject matter, but with "education."
They usually come last in the education funding hierarchy, so their
salary scales may not even be as high as those in the secondary
schools. Their workload is often even more than that of the secondary
teachers and their administrations even more stultifying. All of
which means that, as a group the community college teachers suffer
from poor morale and low motivation. As often as I have said that
there isn't enough money in circulation to get me to teach in middle
schools, I think I would even less rather teach in a community
college.

It is hard to condemn them for having a bad attitude. It's hard not
to have one in that environment. Surprisingly, I know any number of
CC teachers who do have a positive outlook in spite of it all, and
for that I admire them greatly.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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