From: elg@elgamy.uucp.taronga.com (Eric Lee Green)
Date: 10 Nov 92 20:40:15 CDT
Newsgroups: sci.math,misc.education
Subject: Re: Is Math Hard?
Distribution: world
Organization: Eric's Amiga 2000 @ Home

From article <1992Nov10.004159.29572@news.Hawaii.Edu>, by lady@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Lee Lady):
> Finally, I would like to say that if I were in Eric Green's situation (in
> which I would be much less successful than he is) I would start having my
> students measure things.  I suspect that they would learn more
> mathematics in wood shop than in arithmetic class.

At last! A concrete suggestion!

I can even work it into the curriculum, believe it or not, though not in
"math" class. How about social studies, where the kids are supposed to
learn "map skills". Fourth grade inner-city kids haven't the foggiest
notion of any part of the world outside of their neighborhood. They live in
Houston, they may know the name Houston, but they don't know that they live
in Harris County (though they know what the Harris County Detention Center
is!), they are only foggily aware of an entity named "Texas" that they live
in that they can't place on the map... today I had one point to California
and ask, "Where's New York? Over here?". "America" is just a warm fuzzy
feeling with no meaning.

So I'm back to second grade material: I'm going to have them do a scale
map of the classroom. How about -- fractions, basic integers, base-12
arithmetic, all in one, along with a fuller understanding of how maps
represent reality?

As for my success (or lack thereof): I'm glad SOMEBODY thinks I'm
successful. I'm afraid that I go in everyday and just don't see where
I'm doing these kids a whole lot of good. There's so much they don't know,
that they should know. And I have to move so slow with these kids. Not
because they're "slow". It's because they're disorganized, like the
chaotic homes that they come from. They don't think in straight lines.
Throw several pieces of information at them at once, and everything gets
jumbled up inside. That's why "word problems" confuse them -- having to
think of two things at once (the information, and the operation to apply to
it) gets them frantic. So I have to structure things very exactly for them
so that they don't get confused. Structure takes time. These kids don't
have time. Especially since things like music, PE, and "library" take huge
chunks out of their days (I WANT EXTENDED SCHOOL DAYS! Though I want only
PE and music teachers to work those extra two hours!). Not to mention
speech therapy (for three of the students) and adaptive PE (for a
handicapped student -- right in the middle of science time, meaning he's
being short-changed on science).

So I look at the kids, and I think, "Am I just an overpaid babysitter,
anyway?". And I think, "I'm not a psychologist, what am I supposed to say
and do when a kid tells me about how his mother got drunk and took them all
down the freeway at 100 miles per hour and him and his little sisters were
screaming and begging?". And I think, "This kid will probably be in the
gangs within three years", when it's a smart kid who could make something
of himself in a better environment...

--
 Eric Lee Green  elg@elgamy.taronga.com   Dodson Elementary
 (713) 664-6446                             Houston, TX
                "Kids are kids, no matter what"
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