Let’s Teach Our Kids How to Think

Have you ever studied for a test and then when it came time to actually take the test you saw questions that were almost nothing like the concepts that you studied?

Recently, I asked a few friends what they thought was the most challenging part of math. One answer was, “I felt like what we learned in class never aligned with either the homework or the assessments.” This successful auditor, who works with problem solving and numbers daily, felt dumb in math class since 5th grade.

This got me thinking how many times I’ve heard my students tell me that they feel ready during our sessions for a test, and then boom! They bomb the test. Why is that? I know that if someone can teach a concept to another, then they truly understand the material. My kiddos in sessions were able to do that regularly! So then what was it that was blocking these intelligent kiddos from success?

At first, I thought perhaps the questions were worded differently on the assessments than the problems that we would work on together. But then I realized that if kiddos can explain what they are doing to solve a problem, then they should be able to solve another problem even if it’s worded differently. But then it hit me like a train when I was reading Jo Boalers book What’s math got to do with it? In the book, Boaler mentions that students of a specific type of school felt the same way as my students do.

Boaler mentions that the kiddos who feel this way come from schools that teach math very traditionally. Rows, lectures, notes, and tons of practice problems. She also mentions that students who never felt that way come from schools that do not take that same traditional approach to teach math. Instead the other schools have students solve complex problems and teach the kiddos what they need to know as the problem is worked on in class, or the kiddos work on large 3-week projects and again taught the math they need to know when they ask to know it.

It made me think…

Does that mean that there are kiddos who ask to be taught math on this planet?! I’ve come across some intelligent and polite kiddos, but none have ever asked me to teach them MORE math… or math that they needed to know to solve a problem.

I’ll admit it, I’m guilty of the traditional style of teaching math. It’s hard to be innovative all the time. It’s even harder when teachers who are innovative are bashed by parents in the community. (Yes I’ve heard my name in many cafe’s and playgrounds used in that negative tone.)

But to think that I am doing such a disservice to my students. This really irritates me. I pride myself on being there for my students in any way that I can be and here I am letting them down.

By choosing to “teach” the kiddos the formula instead of having them discover it on their own, or better yet, ASKING me to share with them my knowledge I’ve stripped them of their basic ability to think for themselves. And isn’t that what we all want our kiddos to do? Don’t we want our kiddos to grow up and be adults who think for themselves? Or would we rather have a slew of sheep?

We definitely have a long way to go before all classrooms have students who ASK their teachers to teach them a specific way to solve a problem as Boaler describes in her book, but we should definitely move in that direction before we bring up another generation of mindless sheep who follow ridiculous TikTok trends.