Confession
School just started back again, and I have a confession to
make. I’ve been having a hard time not
saying a bad word. And, to make it even
worse, I’ve been saying this bad word in front of my students…. all the time. It’s a bad habit, and bad habits are hard to
break.
Perhaps this admission comes as a shock to my readers. Perhaps more shocking would be if you knew
what the word I’ve been saying over and over – almost every day – in front of
my students. Here’s a hint: it begins with an ‘m’, and the third and 4th
letters are ‘t’ and ‘h’. That should be
enough for you to figure out what word it is I’m talking about. I know, I know… you are appalled.
Great Expectations
On the third day of school, I gave my students a puzzle to
solve. It was a geometry puzzle, and
they had a blast trying to match up the pieces.
I had heard that this cohort of kids was an eager bunch that thirsted
for learning, but this was better than I could imagine. I couldn’t wait for school the next day! That night, I went to bed with a big smile on
my face: I was looking forward to a great year teaching math.
Right after the morning announcements that next day, my
students were in their seats ready to begin their first class of the day. 24 eager faces stared up at me as I said,
“Class, it’s time to begin
math. I know you are all as excited as I
am!”
A collective groan went up,
“Oh NO!
Do we HAVE to?”
“Can’t
we start NEXT week??”
“I
HATE math!!!”
Caught off guard, I changed gears
for the moment. I held up my hand to
signal for the ruckus to end, and when it died down I took a poll that would
forever change the course of the year.
“If
you hate math, please raise your hand.”
A few hands went up, then a few
more. Maybe they were scared of what my
response would be.
“Be
honest. You won’t get in trouble. To
tell you the truth, I hated math when I was in elementary school. And middle school. And up through high school. In fact, when I graduated high school, I told
my friends that I would never take another math class again if I could help
it.”
Several kids chuckled, and in a
few seconds almost all the hands in the class were raised. The verdict was in: my kids DESPISED math. It was time for desperate measures.
“Well,
there we have it. We all hate math so…
we aren’t going to do math this year.”
Educating
Mr. Lin
The kids looked around at each
other - first suspiciously, then excitedly.
“Yeah!!!
We won’t do math this year!”
“Do
you think we’ll have recess instead?
That would be AWESOME!!!”
“Mr.
Lin, are you serious?? We won’t do math?
I was dead serious. I
was serious about taking a page out of a book I read during graduate school
called Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year. Her kids hated math, just like mine did.
“I’m being serious. In the fifth grade, we don’t do math. We solve puzzles. Math class is now Puzzling class. From now on, ‘Math’ is a bad word. I don’t want to hear anyone say that word
again.”
There was no turning back:
from that moment on, there was going to be one more four-letter word I
had to abstain from.
All-In (as always)
As the days and weeks have
rolled on, I continued to build on this new word for math. I was all-in; I talked about how with puzzles
you need to take your time and take multiple steps. I related composite numbers to Legos, with
prime numbers being the individual blocks.
And, one of my new classroom jobs is a student who – when I slip up and
say the dreaded ‘m’ word, stands up and shouts,
“Bad
Mr. Lin! Go to the office for recess!”
My students have also been
all-in with this. They tell on each
other – and are serious about it – whenever one of them slips up and says that
bad word that has now been banned in my classroom. Many have scratched the word ‘math’ off of
anything they own that has the word pre-printed on it. And, perhaps best of all, another teacher
stopped me today and told me about a conversation she had with a former
student:
“Dahlia* said she loves math this
year! She said you call it ‘Puzzling’
because it’s like solving puzzles. She
said that even when she doesn’t understand something at first, she knows that
she will eventually figure it out because puzzles take time to figure out.”
Whether it’s smoking, biting
your nails, eating fried foods, or saying the ‘m’ word, breaking a bad habit
sure isn’t an easy thing. I still slip
up every now and again, but I’m committed to quitting because it’s worth it for
the sake of my students. Anyone with
kids would tell you the same thing.
*Note: Name changed
