So it's summer and my tutoring job has been different since school got out and kids don't want to have to think. I have to really work to get kids interested in thinking again at the beginning of summer.
I blame standardized testing.
After they've been taught to the test, after they've sat for endless hours with that dry book that mimics the standardized test, after they've sat with me with tears in their eyes and said, "I am so stressed that I just hate myself," they finish these exams, school finally ends, grades are posted, and then their eyes roll back into their heads. When they come for tutoring, they look at me as if I am the executioner. They act like they've just gone blind and deaf. They come in with their hair still damp from swimming. They do not want to be sitting in a white room with a desk, a workbook, and a tutor.
They think that they do not want to learn.
But they do.
When I brought up quantum physics, one student leaned back in his chair and corrected me. I had been thinking on the level of particles and he was thinking of the multiverse. We were both right.
Whenever we worked with the workbook, at the proper pace, doing the ordinary school material, that boy fell asleep on his workbook, groaning whenever I woke him up. He complained that he hadn't slept that night, that he just couldn't think. But then I suggested he write a question on a PostIt note and put it by his bed, then try to answer that question when he couldn't sleep in the middle of the night. Suddenly, he woke right up and we made a list of questions he should work on answering while he wasn't sleeping at night.
Why does gravity work the way it does?
What are particles?
Why is the sky blue?
How does an engine work? That was something I suggested. His mind was more in the stars than mine. He was imagining the universe.
And for the rest of the session while he wasn't actively working on a worksheet, he was doodling on that piece of paper, drawing space-time fabric around a large mass. He kept trying to explain it to me whenever I turned toward him. He was awake, alert, thinking, and trying to teach me. He was teaching me.
It was awesome.
When I brought in random pine cones and showed my students how the number of spirals matched a Fibonacci number in one direction and the number of spirals in the other direction was the next up or the next down from that particular number, the kids marked the pine cones and took them home to show their parents. They took the Fibonacci numbers, 1,1,2,3,5,8, and 13 to them to test whether or not they could guess the next number in the series. They were excited when they deduced the next numbers faster than their parents could.
When I showed some kids how to count, add, and multiply in binary numbers, some of them were interested, some weren't. But one boy kept going with it. I had to run, metaphorically, to keep ahead of what he wanted to do with the binary numbers. Octal, check. Hexadecimal, check. Converting the numbers from one base to another, check.
Crap! I was almost at my limit.
I showed him an AND gate, then an OR gate, digital logic used for electronic circuits. That kid ate it all up and we finally ran out of time. Just in time. I was going to have to refer to my college text book to show him the next thing, the logic tables, the schematics, multiplexers.
Another girl, disinterested in binary numbers, got excited when we talked about the physics of music, of wave theory. She already understood the frequencies of octaves, of volume, and of pitch. She intuitively understood the sine wave and only needed a little prodding to understand the Doppler effect, how the tone of a car driving by on a highway drops in frequency when it passes and heads away from you. She understood that immediately.
Crap!
I'm going to have to learn some new tricks. I'm going to have to study. This summer program, the idea I had of going off the workbooks for a while and figuring out what the kids loved to learn, is going to require me to know my stuff.
I've been skating along only half-knowing my stuff for a while now. I'm going to have to crack open some books. I'm going to have to learn some shit.
Thank you for listening, jb
I blame standardized testing.
After they've been taught to the test, after they've sat for endless hours with that dry book that mimics the standardized test, after they've sat with me with tears in their eyes and said, "I am so stressed that I just hate myself," they finish these exams, school finally ends, grades are posted, and then their eyes roll back into their heads. When they come for tutoring, they look at me as if I am the executioner. They act like they've just gone blind and deaf. They come in with their hair still damp from swimming. They do not want to be sitting in a white room with a desk, a workbook, and a tutor.
They think that they do not want to learn.
But they do.
When I brought up quantum physics, one student leaned back in his chair and corrected me. I had been thinking on the level of particles and he was thinking of the multiverse. We were both right.
Whenever we worked with the workbook, at the proper pace, doing the ordinary school material, that boy fell asleep on his workbook, groaning whenever I woke him up. He complained that he hadn't slept that night, that he just couldn't think. But then I suggested he write a question on a PostIt note and put it by his bed, then try to answer that question when he couldn't sleep in the middle of the night. Suddenly, he woke right up and we made a list of questions he should work on answering while he wasn't sleeping at night.
Why does gravity work the way it does?
What are particles?
Why is the sky blue?
How does an engine work? That was something I suggested. His mind was more in the stars than mine. He was imagining the universe.
And for the rest of the session while he wasn't actively working on a worksheet, he was doodling on that piece of paper, drawing space-time fabric around a large mass. He kept trying to explain it to me whenever I turned toward him. He was awake, alert, thinking, and trying to teach me. He was teaching me.
It was awesome.
When I brought in random pine cones and showed my students how the number of spirals matched a Fibonacci number in one direction and the number of spirals in the other direction was the next up or the next down from that particular number, the kids marked the pine cones and took them home to show their parents. They took the Fibonacci numbers, 1,1,2,3,5,8, and 13 to them to test whether or not they could guess the next number in the series. They were excited when they deduced the next numbers faster than their parents could.
When I showed some kids how to count, add, and multiply in binary numbers, some of them were interested, some weren't. But one boy kept going with it. I had to run, metaphorically, to keep ahead of what he wanted to do with the binary numbers. Octal, check. Hexadecimal, check. Converting the numbers from one base to another, check.
Crap! I was almost at my limit.
I showed him an AND gate, then an OR gate, digital logic used for electronic circuits. That kid ate it all up and we finally ran out of time. Just in time. I was going to have to refer to my college text book to show him the next thing, the logic tables, the schematics, multiplexers.
Another girl, disinterested in binary numbers, got excited when we talked about the physics of music, of wave theory. She already understood the frequencies of octaves, of volume, and of pitch. She intuitively understood the sine wave and only needed a little prodding to understand the Doppler effect, how the tone of a car driving by on a highway drops in frequency when it passes and heads away from you. She understood that immediately.
Crap!
I'm going to have to learn some new tricks. I'm going to have to study. This summer program, the idea I had of going off the workbooks for a while and figuring out what the kids loved to learn, is going to require me to know my stuff.
I've been skating along only half-knowing my stuff for a while now. I'm going to have to crack open some books. I'm going to have to learn some shit.
Thank you for listening, jb
No comments:
Post a Comment