Sooner or later, the inevitable would happen 'cause you know that you can only put it off for so long a time. As the minute hand made it to the twelve and the hour hand to the ten, she would always make her standard announcement, "Children, it's time to put away your things and get out your math books." And the next hour that passed would always seem like the longest one of my life.
If I was honest, and I choose to be, then I'd tell the truth-I have hated, avoided, and not understood math for the biggest share of my 55-year old life. In my 5th grade class at Haven Grade School, I was a charter member of the "I Hate Math Club" and I'm pretty sure I was the president of it most of that school year. And if there are still any 45-year old text books around, buried deep in the abyss of the Haven Grade School storage room, you could probably find one that has the following message still written in it with a 10-year old's scrawl:
"PEGGY SCOTT HATES MATH AND THINKS IT IS STUPID!" (That little girl was really very quiet and shy, hardly the kind you would think could deface a school book. LOL)
As my grade school years went on, Virgil Gresham was my math teacher and try as he might, I didn't really catch on with him either. I might have been given a "C" (in a kind, sort of way) just because I finally at LEAST tried to do it without crying. But I'm sure that I wasn't even CLOSE to an average math student. In high school, Neil Hayes taught my general math class and I think I actually eeked a well-earned "C+" out of that one. You'd think that one year of high school math would be a plenty...nah, for some reason they wanted to torture kids like me with some new fangled thing they called "algebra". Poor Art Peitsch....I think he may have given up on me somewhere shortly after Thanksgiving break. It was the only "D" I ever got in high school and the "D" didn't stand for fine and DANDY.....
When I finally grew up, went to college and became a teacher, teaching math to students was at the very bottom of my "I dearly want to" list. But as fate would have it, oh my word, guess what my first job was? I became a Title I math teacher at Haven Grade School, the very place where my aversion against math was given birth to. I couldn't believe it.
But you know what, I did survive and the greatest blessing of taking on that first job was getting to meet 4 young people whom I grew to dearly love, my very first students, ever: John Hopkins, Mike Fazio, Amy Brittain, and Marschelle Giles. They didn't realize it at the time, but they taught me much more than I could ever teach them. It was with their class that I began to realize that math COULD be my friend after all. :)
After 34 years of teaching, being able to stick mostly to teaching primary grades math, I now find myself in year #34 teaching 5th and 6th graders math. Friends, talk about a scary proposition...and believe me, it's NOT the students...I love them. The scary part is in the ways that the teaching of math has changed since I was a kid in school. It surely can be a humbling experience to have to say to a student, "Show me how you got the answer that way, please." But it happened today.
My 5th grade students that I see on a daily basis have learned to do multiplication problems via the "lattice method" of multiplication. Yeah, I know-I didn't what it was either! :) It's ok to admit it, so glad that I'm not alone!
All last evening I sat here at home looking at lesson plans and thinking, "How in the heck am I going to teach something that even I am not sure of?" This morning when I woke up, the answer was as clear as a bell. I wasn't going to teach them--they were going to have to teach me.
When math time came around today, I took a chair amongst theirs at the table. They looked at me kind of funny when I said, "Hey guys...I need someone to teach me how to do lattice multiplication. Anybody willing to show me and everyone else how it's done." I expected there to be a moment of silence where no one would even think of raising up their hand. Little did I know that I was sitting right next to the "student" teacher of the day.
That young girl walked right up to the board and started in on the problem. A 3-digit number multiplied by a 2-digit number. She started quickly through it, not explaining but just showing it. To that I said, "Wait a minute, slow down. Explain this to me." She realized how lost I looked and immediately slowed her computation down. What came naturally for her was like reading a foreign language for me.
After 5-minutes passed we had not only finished one problem, but three problems. It was simple, much more so than I imagined. And I knew that I didn't have to be afraid to help them with it any longer. For those of you, who like me didn't know anything about the lattice method, here's what it looks like:
I have to admit, I didn't come up with the right answer to begin with. I was only off by 20,000-not too bad for a novice! LOL When I checked it by doing a traditional form that we all know, I realized what I'd done wrong. In my time we called it "carrying" and indeed I had forgotten to take care of some "carrying" chores along the way. But I figured it out. And I have a wonderful group of 5th graders and their classroom teachers, Mrs. Bleything and Mrs. Styes to thank.
That little group of 5th graders duly noticed my math success for the day. I reminded them that no matter what they had earlier thought, all teachers (heck any adult) can and should learn something new everyday. No one knows everything or even enough, really! As they left my room at the end of class, I thanked each one of them personally for being MY teacher today. We spent a lot of time going over things that they were good at already so that I might learn the process for doing it as well.. And you know what, I feel kind of good about it. There may be hope for me yet!
The tables got turned today... the students were the teachers and the teacher, well she got to sit in "their world" for a bit. As I sat, struggling along with the problems, I began to feel a lot of empathy for the situations that students sometimes find themselves in.
I love reading and yes, instead of giving me "mathematical genius" the good Lord decided that Peggy Scott would be a whiz at spelling and writing. Every day, I come across students who struggle with the things that I am good at. As a teacher, I have to ask myself, "Have I shown empathy to them today? Have I provided for their needs? Have I made an effort to congratulate them on whatever successes, no matter how small, they have had?" I hope so, truly I do....Living through "math class" has taught me more things than just lattice multiplication. A whole lot more~
Hey, here's the group--6 young people who may be on their way to being educators some day. You don't know for sure~little Peggy Scott didn't plan on being one at their age. Whatever they choose to do, I know they will succeed. I have all the faith in the world in them and their classmates.
By the way, "a rat in the house may eat the ice cream"~~~ever heard of it? How do you think I learned to spell arithmetic? Miss Rose Davis, thanks for being an awesome 5th grade teacher....see you in Heaven my dear friend from the land of "long ago and so very, very far away."
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