Being the harshly opinionated person that I am, one of my great challenges professionally and personally is suspending judgement. It's only gotten worse with age: It seems the smarter and more educated and experienced I become, the more judgemental I am!!! Ugh!
I am therefore very grateful to my colleague in Grade 8 who presumed positive intentions when I recently asked about a math problem she had presented to her class, and which I hoped to use with my own class.
Behold, the Mangos Problem, in its original form:
I am therefore very grateful to my colleague in Grade 8 who presumed positive intentions when I recently asked about a math problem she had presented to her class, and which I hoped to use with my own class.
Behold, the Mangos Problem, in its original form:
Though delighted by the math, the equity advocate in me railed against the hierarchy in the problem: What was all this talk of Kings and palaces and servants?! To make matters worse, as my partner pointed out, in a problem like this, it was necessary to recall the order of things in order to solve the problem, so the sexist, classist structure was actually being reinforced!!!
I immediately set work re-wording the problem, and even put it into a format with which I could experiment with some new technology.
Behold:
I immediately set work re-wording the problem, and even put it into a format with which I could experiment with some new technology.
Behold:
Eager to share my brilliance with my colleague, but cautious about offending her, I carefully asked if she'd be open to a conversation about her mangoes problem.
This afternoon, the opportunity for said conversation arose, as we were on a planning 1/2 day to discuss our research project. First my colleague shared an incredibly powerful lesson on deconstructing "beauty", using the "golden ratio" and some common media images. Surprised by her insight into social justice when it came to women, power and body image, I used that discussion as a segway into the Mangoes Problem.
Wow, did she ever surprise me!
Without skipping a beat, she launched into an explanation of how she almost always creates "problematic problems" to encourage students to think about both the math and the "other" stuff that comes with it. In the case of the Mangoes Problem, she used the story structure to discuss the concept of hierarchy with her students, and to encourage them to question the hierarchy implicit in the classroom. ("I am not the keeper of the knowledge", she tells them, and encourages them to challenge the traditional teacher-student power structures, and take on more ownership of their own learning.)
I was very impressed.
And then I returned to Classflow, and reworded the problem back to the original text!
This afternoon, the opportunity for said conversation arose, as we were on a planning 1/2 day to discuss our research project. First my colleague shared an incredibly powerful lesson on deconstructing "beauty", using the "golden ratio" and some common media images. Surprised by her insight into social justice when it came to women, power and body image, I used that discussion as a segway into the Mangoes Problem.
Wow, did she ever surprise me!
Without skipping a beat, she launched into an explanation of how she almost always creates "problematic problems" to encourage students to think about both the math and the "other" stuff that comes with it. In the case of the Mangoes Problem, she used the story structure to discuss the concept of hierarchy with her students, and to encourage them to question the hierarchy implicit in the classroom. ("I am not the keeper of the knowledge", she tells them, and encourages them to challenge the traditional teacher-student power structures, and take on more ownership of their own learning.)
I was very impressed.
And then I returned to Classflow, and reworded the problem back to the original text!
Originally this post was going to be about how I turned a culturally crappy math problem into a culturally proficient one, isn't Ms. Teschow so fabulous?
Instead, it turned into a blog post about Ms. Teschow eating humble pie.
Again.
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