All four periods requested to throw a going-away party. I can take that as a sweet sentiment after I’ve made a difference in their lives all year…or a bunch of middle-schoolers lunging at any opportunity to have soda in class.
It’s probably about 30-70.
We packed up my personal effects, snacked on Hot Cheetos for 50 minutes, cleaned up for 3 minutes, then I told them this:
“In cultures, when people are leaving to do new things, usually they are given a blessing or a commission. As my 8th graders promote to high school, usually I give a blessing, but I am leaving early, so we’re doing it today.B Some cultures place hands on the shoulders of the person who’s leaving, but there are too many of you, so I’ll just do this:”
I hold my hands out over them, palms down.
“May you be passionate problem-solvers and curious critics. May you be loyal to your friends, obedient to people in charge, friendly to strangers, and kind to those in need. May you be safe, healthy, loved, and happy, and may you becomeB more of those every day. May you every day become a better version of yourself. You have 54 days left of 8th grade. Make them count.”
Bell rings. Out they go. I turn in my keys and leave.
Tuesday – Two Days Left in the Classroom
Vaudrey: You know how sometimes I’m silly and tell jokes? This isn’t one of those times. What I’m about to tell you isn’t a joke.
Nathan: Are you dying?
Jane: Are we in trouble?
Angel: He’s totally dying.
Diane: Just shut up and listen to him!
Vaudrey: You will have a sub on Thursday and Friday; you already knew that. And when you come back from Spring Break, you will have a different math teacher. Tomorrow B is my last day here with you.
Class: What? Why?
Vaudrey: Those meetings I had at the District were job interviews. I’m going to be a Teacher Coach. I’ll take ideas from what our class does and go show other classes how to do it.
Noah: Wow. This sucks.
Diana: No! You’re the reason I get excited about learning!
Marie starts crying.
Ashley:B Can I have your Justin Bieber Picture?
Alex: Can I have your Mr. Vaudrey sign?
Asia: You should give us something because we’re your favorite class.
Andy: Do you get paid more money?
Laura: What kind of cake do you like?
Mando: Does your wife know about this?
Vaudrey: Yeah, she’s okay with it.
Victor: Of courseB sheB is;B she’sB not getting herB heartB broken!
Vaudrey: Please keep it quiet until the end of the day, so I can tell each class personally. I want them to hear it from me.
Linda: [Red-faced and tears in her eyes] What if I can’t learn from the new teacher?
Monday – Three Days Left in the Classroom
“Did you get the joab?” Asked Ms. Zipper–my RSP Aide for 5th period–her distinct Brooklyn accent apparent in her enthusiasm.
“Yeah, I did.” I gave a pained grin. “It’s bittersweet; I don’t want to leave my students mid-year.”
“Oh!” She stammered. “When do you start?”
“The Monday after break. My last day is Wednesday.”
“This Wednesday?” Asked Zipper, her eyebrows raising and head tilting in a distinct New England mannerism. “Yoah kids are gonna lose it.”
Friday – Four Days Left in the Classroom
My phone rings as I’m grading our benchmarks in the teacher’s lounge. It’s Bobbi from district H.R.,B offering me a position as Professional Development Specialist. She says I start Monday, April 7th.
April 7th is the first day back from our 2-week Spring Break, which starts Friday.
Plus the CUE Conference is this Thursday-Saturday.
I gulped, realizing that I had three more days with my students to tell them, pack up my class, and leave.
Well… shoot.
~Matt “Change Hurts” Vaudrey
*That was the humblest way I could explain what a Professional Development Specialist does, without making it sound like I’m ditching them.
Today, the lesson was on linear and non-linear functions. After plotting points and noticing that a ruler can’t go through all five, we stood up, hands at our sides.
I stood on a desk. Because it’s my class and I can do what I want to.
“Elbows out.” [I show them.]
“Arms out.” [All students are making a T.]
“Arms down.” [Everyone is giggling, but obeying.]
“When I say go, show me a linear function with your arms… go!”
The class snaps into a variety of positions, all with straight arms.
Kinda like this, but all at the same time.
“Awesome. Arms down. Now show me a non-linear function…go!”
Kinda like this, but all at the same time.
When 5th period arrived, the day went from good to great. First, they barely made it to one linear function before they were karate-kicking chairs and each other.
“Huh… Okay, siddown.” I said, hopping off the desk.
They froze. “What?”
“Yeah, I’m not gonna fight you so we can do fun things in class. Siddown.”
We do some more practice and agree to try again. We make it through a couple successful commands before Lorraine takes it up a notch:
“Can we play Simon Says?”
Hell yes, we can!
Simon says ‘show me a non-linear function’.
Simon says ‘show me a function that makes a vertical line’.
Arms down. Ah! I didn’t say ‘Simon Says’. You’re out, you’re out, you’re out. Sit.
Simon says ‘show me the YMCA’.
Previously, we established that one of Mr. Stadel’s hands holds 18 Red Vines, so our guesses hovered around 100-120 (5-7 handfuls).
Halfway through the video answer, we’re at 150 and I hear Frank.
“Goddammit! I only put 130!”
When’s the last time you found an activity for math class that got kids amped enough to curse about it?
For the record, Frank thought he was mumbling to his neighbor, and I didn’t discipline him. Judge if you must, but I’d much rather have excitement and foul language than boredom and silence.
The real highlight of today, however, came when the video slowed down.
…and Donte is out of his seat, pumping both arms in the air, chanting, “Two hundred! Two hundred! Come ooooon, baby! Two hundred!” He’s dancing back and forth as only an amateur pro athlete can.
Then, Mr. Stadel pulls out the 201st Red Vine, just to taunt Donte.
..and Donte’s arms fall to his sides, his jaw drops, and his eyes deaden. He stands transfixed, staring at the wall, crestfallen that he was so close to a perfect guess.
And I laughed my ass off.
Months later, I realized what a bummer it was that Donte was so crushed by guessing 201. His previous 7 years of math education had taught him he was wrong, even though he was 0.5% off of the correct answer.
Thankfully, after a few more months of these, Donte grew confident enough in his process to be content with having hisB product be different from the answer key.
~Matt “Hasn’t Eaten Red Vines Since Middle School” Vaudrey
First year of teaching: Survival. Don’t die. Middle years: Improve. Make a few dozen memorable lessons that you enjoy teaching. Curriculum Adoption Year: Survive. Attempt to cram your memorable lessons into foreign molds, like Michelangelo building a swan from the tin foil wrapped around Mexican leftovers.
Sometimes, though, it works okay.
Given all the recent discussion on real-world vs. fake-world in math education, it’s tempting for teachers in the middle years (this author included) to try any means necessary to create engagement out of half a steak burrito.
Let’s try saying that another way:
8th Grade Standard 8.F.2:
Compare properties of two functions, each represented in a different way (algebraically, graphically, numerically in tables, or by verbal descriptions).
Okay. Those examples could go horribly or great.
Interesting?
Interesting?
Middle and high school are where the social development of students flexes dramatically from day to day.
Can I wear this? What happens if I wear this? How much makeup is too much? What will my friends think if I date this person? B Does this matter? Who should I talk to?B Where do I fit in?
Michael Pershan absolutely nails something about students that few discuss (outside of my youth pastor wife and me): adolescents still aren’t quite sure which things are real and which aren’t, which things matter and which don’t.
What? No! You cannot drink radioactive waste to grow gills!
Teachers, how many of your students have mentioned ghosts, superpowers, or the Illuminati this year? While it’s less than half that ask the questions like, “Mr. Vaudrey, are vampires real?”,B the entire class is silent while I answer.B I think that’s because:
Students aren’t certain what’s real and what’s not, so grappling and applying meaning are core tenets of a successful math curriculum.
More on that functions lesson later this week.
~Matt “There’s a reason Harry Potter has sold 400 million copies” Vaudrey
It appears that Fawn and I did this lesson on the same day… again. We teach over 100 miles from each other, but we appear to have some type of ESP that only affects the snarky.
Anyway.
Twice in the last three months, I have told a room full of teachers and education professionals to “take a risk, jump in, just go for it”, and I’ve used today’s lesson as an example. The Barbie BungeeB (two years ago) was just dropped on students with no prior discussion and only a little planning on my part, and it went fine.
What I didn’t mention was that I did this lesson at the end of the school year after testing, when students are most likely to be thankful for a day outside and a weird lesson. A day without a clear learning objective was fine then.
Not so, now.
Toward the end of a unit on graphing (using prescribed curriculum that left some holes), we took a couple days to do the Barbie Bungee. I overhauled the handoutB completely… except it’s still pink.
When I say completely, I meanB brain is a bit fried from making sense of the prescribed curriculum, and I forgot what students care about or what is mathematically important.
In the first three seconds, students (and teachers in my workshop) gasp. They are hooked. Then, as a class, we discuss. “What do you think those guys were talking about as they drove out to the missile silo?”B Student comments followed:
Will the rope break?
Will the rope be long enough?
Will anybody find my body before it freezes solid in the Russian wilderness?
“Why not get a short rope?” I ask. “My wife doesn’t want my brain mushed out my ears, and I might just use a seat belt for this jump.”
“Yeah, but that’s boring,” says Frankie. “Like, you wouldn’t have any fun.”
“Ah, so I want a really long bungee, then.”
“No!” Angelica jumps in. “Cuz if it’s too long, then you’ll hit the ground and die.”
Boom. Constraints established. A bungee jump should be fun, yet safe.
Like “Bear-Caging”, which is all the rage in British Columbia
Students brought dolls, were grouped into twos and threes, and did trials at three heights to find the maximum jump that was still safe. This was a change from last year, when students did three trials at five heights (a luxury from 90-minute periods that 55-minute periods do not afford).
It pained me to delete my beautiful table from previous years (attachment here), and even as I did it, something about the new lab sheetB felt … lacking.
It wasn’t until my math coach came to visit (and I felt a bit self-conscious) that I realized what was missing:
The Point.
It was a fun activity with no point (just as before), except that now, I had stuck it in the middle of a unit without crafting student tasks around a learning goal.
The pink lab sheet and fun activity was just another disjointed set of operations with no attachment to the larger world of mathematics, the very thing I seek to avoid.
I also try to avoid bears, but luckily, there’s a cage for that.
I feel compelled here to note that Barbie Bungee does not fit into the adopted curriculum, but something like it would be necessary (more on that later).
Math Coach burst into my class at lunch. “The big jump. That’s the point. They are gathering data to derive an equation to solve for the big height so Barbie doesn’t die. That’s your point.”
Here’s the issue with that: with an error hovering around 15% (and no training on line of best fit), my students’ equations were all over the place. One group calculated they would need eight rubber bands to jump off the roof (when 58 inches required six), and the group next to them needed 100.
Well, crap. I scrapped Bungee from that day.
Monday morning, I weighed all the Barbies on a food scale. Taking one from each weight class outside, I recorded my own data points (more than three apiece), and dropped them into Desmos, which is fast-becoming my go-to device for concrete-izing when something is too abstract.
Now–one doll at a time–I call on students and move the sliders.
“Marco, should the slope increase, decrease, or stay the same? Maria, should the y-intercept increase, decrease, or stay the same? Alex, should the slope…”
Students were silent, every period, as they saw firsthand in real-time what it means to “increase the slope of a line”.
Also, there was no “right answer”. You wanna move the y-intercept down? Fine. The next student might move it right back up.
Eventually, students agreed that the line of each weight class passed through the respective points (for the most part), andB we dropped the slider values into an equation for the number of bungees needed (r) to jump a certain height (h).
I passed out my Barbies to each group, and each Barbie matched up with an equation from a Barbie in a similar weight class.
And–feminist that I am–I didn’t use the term “weight class”.
Micro-managey? Sure. But when you teach RSP 8th-graders, you can’t exactly have the free-flowing hippie class that Fawn does. I made the choice to limit minor errors, so I need only correct ones pertinent to this unit.
Meaning I kept the long bungees from each period instead of waiting for groups to untie and re-tie them each period, and I labeled the legs of my Barbies, so they wouldn’t forget what her name was.
Also, duct-tape dresses.
A few minutes of calculating, a few more of tying rubber bands, and we’re off to the races.
Click to see video.
We spent the most time discussing how to fit the line to the data and why.
When in the course of human events, teachers will sometimes adopt curriculum.
The best days happen outside of it.
Gremlins, Speed Dating, and Monomial Cubes
Before we go further, I should describe what we call “Monster Equations” in my school.
“Eek!”
The above equation is a Monster. It has several steps, uses multiple operations, and is terrifying to an 8th grade RSP student. Luckily, we have tools to fight such monsters.
Our notes for the week
The acronym DCMAM stands for Don’t Call Me A Monster.
It also stands for the steps needed (in order) to whittle a “Monster” down to a 2-step equation (with which, the students are modestly comfortable).
Got it? That’s a Monster Equation and why we call it that. Onward:
Last week, I taught Monster Equations and it bombed. Students didn’t know how to combine like terms, distribute properly, mirror operations on both sides of the equal sign “wall”, or even add two numbers with different signs.
This isn’t surprising; those are all skills covered in 7th grade, and our adopted curriculum assumes they remember everything.
The same way that my wife assumes hot dogs are good for you, you just have to eat enough of them.
So, my class is going back to those basics, and today was “Gremlin Equations”.
Surprisingly, about 1/3 of each class had seen the movie.
A “Gremlin” equation isn’t quite a Monster, but still requires delicate handling, because if you break the rules…
“Each of you has an expression glued to the bottom of your paper, it’s half of a Gremlin Equation. You and your partner will combine your two expressions to make a Gremlin and solve it together. When you’re done, you both stand and find new partners.”
As I described it to my department head, I realized what it actually was:
Equation Speed Dating.
“I see you checking out my coefficients, baby.”
In the first classes, one student would fill both sides of the worksheet with about 10 minutes left and proclaim, “I’m done.” At that point, I killed the music, returned students to their seats, and opened up the Pan Balance from NCTM. They dove right into it and burned the last few minutes.
AutoCrat, a Foldable, and Impromptu Estimation
After about three hours of attempting to synthesize Google Drive with my district firewall, I was met with a failure sandwich on toasted frustration bread. My digital team-mates–John and Karl–did the best they could to troubleshoot unique solutions:
Well, 6th period arrived before IT support did, so I pulled a quickB foldable from Sarah’s blogB and followed it with my bag full of monomial cubes, planning to do some random practice.
I held up the bag andB immediately a student called, “How many dice are in the bag?”
Oh. I thought. This just got much more interesting. “What do you think?” I asked.
A couple students call out guesses before someone yells, “Can we see one of them?”
We pull a few guesses (where the median is about 65) and start counting them together.
“Is there an easier way to arrange them for counting? This is confusing me.”
“Okay, five by five… so we’ve got three 25s plus one… so… ”
Student: 76! I was close!
“What if this was on a planet where humans had 4 fingers on each hand instead of 5?”
Students paused. Thought for a little bit. Then…
Hey! Five 16s with 4 missing! That’s also 76!
So, yeah. It was a good day.
Tomorrow, students will finish up their Monster PostersB with this cut-and-paste Monster EquationB activity.
The term “Digital Native”, while creative, isn’t an accurate representation of young students.
Because I liked being included as a “Digital Immigrant” (an equally cute term), I bought into the idea, but I’ve been less and less convinced lately.
Partly because of the description: A digital native is a person born into today’s digital culture, who takes to it naturally, as a duck to water.
Network Configuration
Even hearing it phrased like that begs the question: Do students actually take to technology easier, faster, or more often than their aged counterparts?
“Oh, I just use it to text and hammer nails.”
Nope.
Not even a little.
Sure, my younger sisters can text like it’s their job, and my students are really good at Minecraft,
Like, really, suspiciously good at Minecraft.
but when it comes to tackling foreign territory, they are just as confused and lost as everybody else. Often, more so; they lack the reasoning skills to seek the likely solution to their problem.
This week, myB Pad students were floored when I showed them satellite view in Google Maps. It took us 20 minutes to get walking directions from their house to the school. Setting up new iPads takes two hours at the beginning of the year.
Teachers, however, are more likely to realize that after they’ve joined a wireless network, they can click DONE to move on to the next screen. No less than 15 students ask me “Now what do I do?” during iPad setup.
YOU JUS… hmm… Just click where it says “Done”.
So, Administrators: if you use the term “digital native” with a teacher who deals with young people and technology, they’ll likely raise an eyebrow.
UPDATE 10 FEBRUARY 2015: Today, I was talking with a teacher about this very thing, we decided that a child born near the beach doesn’t necessarily learn how to swim quicker, but is more likely to beB exposed to the water.
It’s most often tenured teachers who have the most surprised reaction when we talk about this. It often starts when our conversations steers close to the issue, and I drop this bomb.
“I’d happily give up Tenure for Merit Pay.”
Eyes widen. Jaws slacken. Palms sweat and buns fidget. “Why’s that?” they ask.
Here’s why:
There’s a teacher at my school who I watched yell at his kids for not lining up correctly before the bell.
For ten minutes.
He also has them copy three pages of notes per section by hand, and that’s theB onlyB way he teaches.
He gets paid more than me.
This teacher and I have never spoken, and I don’t pretend to judge him based solely on hearsay, but — and I say this without a shred of shame — you’d be hard pressed to find two examples in my class of teaching that bad.
John and I discussed this briefly in the car on the way back from La CucinaB this weekend. He pushed back, saying (and I agree) that “teacher ranking needs to be rock-solid”.
Definitely. Let’s go there. There are eight measuresB (so far) of teacher effectiveness, they are, in no order:
1.) Student test scores – Yeah, okay. They areB a measure. One criterion. No denying that.
2.) Parent Survey – this would definitely encourage me to make more parent contact.
3.) Units after Bachelor’s degree – Objective and easily verified.
4.) Student Survey – arguably the best judge of teacher effectiveness, students should have significant voice in what makes a good teacher. I createdB my own listB and I have them grade me two or three times a year. (Then blogged about itB here.)
5.) Peer Observations – You know who else does a good job of judging teacher effectiveness? Other teachers.
6.) Administrator Observations – You know who does a slightly less-good job? Some administrators. Mine are awesome at this, though.
Potentially problematic ways to analyze teacher effectiveness:
7.) Conference and Workshop Attendance – How do you verify what a workshop is?
8.) Student Grades – Uh oh. How do you make sure that each teacher grades the same way on the same assignments?
Anyway, I don’t claim to have the answer, but I have a response to the question.
Below, it’s grouped by day, and all the files are here if you’re impatient. To get the full experience, you should probably play this Pandora station while you read.
Mullet Veterans, some is repetitive from last time, but much is new and improved.
Prologue – All Aboard
As I’ve written previously (and then hidden from the public), this year’s curriculum adoption is a bit … dry. Students (to say nothing of the teachers) aren’t very inspired.
My department head asked me, “We gotta do something to change it up. Do you know of anyB performance tasks that we could do the week before break?”
Funny you should ask; ahem… yes, I do. Am I shouting? I feel like I’m shouting.
A couple hours of updates from me, a few dozen emails, and two department meetings later, we have a week-long Performance Task for the Mullet Ratio that ties right into our adopted curriculum.
That’s like building a Lego model of a Millenium Falcon, then all your friends coming over to build a full-size replica.
Day 1 – What’s a Mullet?
The Day 1 slideshow pretty much covers the order-of-operations for class. The last slide describes what the teacher does. This year, I went for a stripped-down, get-moving-quickly approach. First, we discussed what a Mullet is.
Then, we debated which of the two is more Mullet-y. Student responses were gems like:
Eduardo looks cleaner, like his business is gelled.
Butch looks like his business is just shaved, and his party is totally wild.
Does Eduardo have a piercing? He’s hot!
The emphasis here was reminding students that it isn’t a competition of whose hair looks better, it’s a question of who is more mullety.B
During first period, a student asked, “What does this have to do with math?” (He was smiling when he asked, so it’s cool.) Then, I introduced the Mullet Ratio.
After two periods, I went around each class to check with other teachers. Some had a hard time maintaining interest the whole period.B That was a fair critique, one that I noticed in my own class; the second half of the period drags a bit. The department head piped in, “How about a Gallery Walk?”
Brilliant!
So instead of calculating the Mullet Ratio from their seat, they walked around and did it. (Teachers with Smart Responders, this is a good way to have them be accountable, plus it boosts their grade.)
Here are some more great student comments:
Lionel Ritchie looks like Apollo Creed meets Prince.
Can I drop all those zeroes for Ryan?
And my favorite comment of the day:
Lionel Ritchie, man; the combination of the Jheri-curl, the mustache, the eyes that pierce your soul. Go ahead, look into his eyes and tell him he’sB notB fabulous. Just looka that Nigel Thornberry Nose.
I was doubled over laughing at that.
During 6th period (iPad class), I had students fill out a simple form each day. It helped me to understand where some gaps were, plus it was just fun.B I highlighted some interesting responses here.
Day 2 – Calculating Mullets
Students are given a worksheet with famous mullets on itB , a ruler, and a pipe cleaner. Much like before, the pipe cleaner is fit along the hair, then straightened on the ruler to measure the Party and Business.
Previously, students had ranked the 7 Mulletiest in order. While mathematical, it’s boring, so…
Students plot where each of the 7 people fall on a graph of Business vs. Party.
After that, they measure theirB own ratio and the ratio of 5 other people and plot them, too.
I dragged my class roster into a new page in Excel and called students over to plug in their business and party (great way to involve a student who finishes way early).
Then, ranking them high-low, we discuss with similar questions from last time.
Why does Isaiah (who has corn-rows) have a ratio that’s so high?
Juan, Ladovic, and Timothy have the same ratio, but different haircuts; why is that?
Why doesn’t anybody have a negative ratio?
Day 3 – Non-Mullets and Mulletude
The text-heavy instructions on the Day 3 handout took some explaining for the first couple periods. Middle-schoolers weren’t exactly lunging for their colored pencils like I thought they would. Turns out my expectations were off.
“All this broccoli just for me? Hurray!”
I ended up stopping them after the first page to get into the Day 3 slideshow,B which is brand new this year. Those that wanted to keep going on the worksheet (more than half of each class) could bring back the back page completed tomorrow.
Things I never thought I’d say: “So you’re saying that Thor has less party than Justin Bieber, but more than Obama?” pic.twitter.com/d9iOGx67EO
This was a suggestion from my Math Coach, Tiffany, who came up with the format in the car. It’s pretty self-explanatory.
The math on the backB took about 15 minutes to explain (more for my RSP classes), but they really got involved in the art. I ended up going here in the interest of keeping things moving.
This is one of several ways I felt that I compromised the integrity of a rich task in the name of efficiency (during the last week before Winter Break).
Day 5 – Showcase
I have an iPad intervention class during 6th period, so they spent yesterday going to all the other math classes and capturing images of the best art from that teacher, which we then uploaded to a DropBox folder and shared with each teacher.
On the Friday before Christmas break, what better way to kill a half-period than a slideshow of various students with mullets?
+ & N
First, the positive:
Students never said “Aw, Mullets,B again?” They were interested all week. Hopefully, that fire was fueled by my mullet wig and blasting 80’s glam rock outside my class all week.
Student: Hands-on activities made it more exciting.
Here’s a quote from Nick, who teaches SDC students at my school:
What my students and I liked most about the lesson was that it was fun! I didnb t need to toggle a carrot or mention team pts. to keep them in engaged. As far as understanding units of measurement, well, that was the neatest part. Kids that struggled with conceptualizing the units of measurement in the past seemed to get it due to the pipe cleaner as their guiding template.
Things to change (N):
Add diversity. 95% of the Mullet Pics are white dudes. I realized this on Day 3, so we opened Day 4 with this:
Add a section where students calculate mullet ratios, then match people with the same ratio (Huh, these two have different haircuts, but the same ratio. I wonder why that is.)
THEN: B on Day 2 (with the Famous Mullets handout), add a section for an ordered pair (business, party). Plotting those points is easier.
THEN, on Day 3 (Mulletude of Other Haircuts), each picture of another haircut has an ordered pair related to it, and the axes have a grid.
THEN, after the haircuts are placed, we draw lines through people with the same mullet ratio, but different haircuts.
BOOM, introduction to slope as a constant rate of change.
I’ve thrice been picked out of a conference crowd (and dozens of times on Twitter) as “The Mullet Guy”. It’s a role I never thought I would fill, but one I’m happy to. It’s my hope that my other material shows a constant climb toward improved teaching.
It’s a one-trick pony. Get it?
If you have an idea to improve the Mullet Lesson, leave a comment. That’s how many of these adaptations came about. Below are some additions from Liisa Suurtamm, who teaches advanced functions in Canada.
~Matt “Rock You Like A Hurricane” Vaudrey
UPDATE 27 November 2018: A series of ridiculous and fantastic tweets about the Mullet Ratio, collected here.
#CaEdChat is going on right now. I’m no doubt missing dozens of witty, hastily-typed tweets to type this, but I think it’s important.
Tonight, #CaEdChat is discussing questions, and I heard this one kicked around a lot, and I want to share my response to it.
This isn’t about the question that gets teachers the most excited.B It’s also not the boringest question we get all year.
It’s not the easiest question to answer, nor is it the hardest (though many teachers seem to think it is).
It’s the question that new teachers fear, but veteran teachers still wince when we hear it.
This question is one that drove us to become teachers in the first place, and it’s still being asked now, decades after we asked it toB our teachers, and our children and grandchildren will ask their teachers:
Why do we need to know this?
I usually get this question about 3 weeks into the year. If not, I pull it out with the first really abstract Math topic that we get. This year it was Classifying Real Numbers.
I got through the meat of the lesson and said,
Okay, put down your pencils, fold your hands and look at me. You’re probably wondering by now when you will use this in real life, yes? I’m going to tell you.
You won’t.
Odds are that most of you will go to jobs where you don’t need to do this [point to the board] in your career. However, it’s still important. Here’s why:
When I was in college, I used the same workout room as the football players. One day, I was lifting weights across from thisB huge guy. He picked up these massive weights and did this:
I was surprised, so I asked him, “Bro. Why are you doing that? Shouldn’t you practice sprints or throwing a football or something you’ll actually use?”
He responded, “Dude-ski, I may not use this motion in the game, but I use this muscle in the game, fo shizzle*.”
“I’m so glad I did those calf raises!”
Students, the math you learn in this class will work out your brain in ways that you will use. You will likelyB neverB need to classify real numbers in your profession, but because you worked out your brain, you’ll be smarter. You’ll be a better boyfriend, girlfriend, boss, employee, and friend.
Is that a fair answer?
So far, that answer has satisfied every class in my teaching career.
~Matt “Honest Abe” Vaudrey
*If the slang terms wasn’t clue enough on the decade when I was in college, here’s a picture of me and my roommates.
