by Eric Benzel

Motivation was the topic of last Thursday’s teaching math seminar.

Here are some excerpts:

From book: “… you should now have the students realizing that there is a void in their knowledge. They are now motivated to learn how to find the values of trigonometric functions of angles greater than 90°.”

From class: “You can give the kids an extra credit math art project and they will blow you away! The kids really loved math doing this project.”

Really? Ok… I’ll admit that I love math. Geek flows in my in my veins, and solving math problems can be addicting. Hearing these “motivational” recommendations almost had me laughing out loud though! Can the authors of the text book really expect students to find trigonometric identities interesting just because I point out they don’t know this yet? Does the teacher (who happens to work at one of the most prestigious gifted schools in the country) expect an extra credit do whatever you feel like (with a math theme) project to motivate a normal class of students who 1) hate math and 2) have been told they aren’t good at math since they were young?

Yea, motivation is a tough subject and, to be fair, the authors of this unnamed text give lots of other, somewhat decent, suggestions. The gifted teacher was simply presenting a possible project. Yet I think the lack of student motivation is one of the most important issues we deal with. It connects to identity, classroom culture, performance, and future plans! I left the conversation deeply cynical but motivated to learn about motivation!

I don’t have the answers to this yet… so I’m making student motivation my own learning goal for the next year. (Last year I focused on learning about the research and best practices of cooperative learning). I want to be able to help an integrated algebra class love math (something the Regents can’t measure, by the way). I think that my classroom must be a place where students are motivated to work hard and learn lots!

Any places to start? Any recommendations? Here is a list of questions I’m starting to develop:

1. What contexts are motivating for students? I don’t think ‘real world’ is enough… what are characteristics of contexts that are highly motivating for students.
2. How to help students move beyond grade based motivation. Is standards based grading the answer? Ungraded work? What is out there?
3. How does community fit into the motivation picture: are there class structures that not only facilitate higher interaction but also higher levels of collective motivation?
4. Is motivation or interest something that can be tracked? Are there ways of determining my own effectiveness (other than a sense) in increasing the interest and motivation of my students?

Here are two interesting ideas that have come up in the last month. The first is a TED talk that I am obsessed with right now. The second is one of those bizzare prezi things that a friend emailed to me (my favorite recommendation: be less helpful!). Check them out and let me know if you’ve found anything good!

http://blog.ted.com/2009/08/the_surprising.php

http://prezi.com/aww2hjfyil0u/math-is-not-linear/

by Eric Benzel

Isn’t this picture wonderful?! My dad took this photo of a bunch of teenagers playing in the fire hydrants this week while they were out here to visit: classic NYC. Students had their last day of school last friday, and there have been kids playing everywhere! Last friday was also graduation across most of the city: the subways were full of students in their dress clothes and graduation gowns holding flowers. Proud parents surrounded their beaming graduates! It was pretty exciting.

This all has got me thinking about being a teacher! Graduation seems like it means something very different for teachers. What will I feel when my first students walk across the stage and receive their diplomas? Pride of course. Maybe sadness, excitement, fear, or loss? Students that I will have known for a semester or four years will be leaving the safe space we try to create in schools to enter the real world. How will I feel as a teacher?

That is, if I get to be a teacher here in the city next year. If you haven’t caught the news, NYC is on a hiring freeze, and the mayor and governor have proposed budget cuts to prevent laying off thousands of additional new teachers. Nonetheless, last year, NYDOE recieved 23,000 applications for new teachers and hired just ten percent of applicants! The real world is quickly approaching! Its going to be application time before we know it… is it too soon to be thinking about the first graduation?

by Eric Benzel

I am taking a course called Radical Philosophies and Education at Teacher’s College: two weekends of all day discussions. The environment is a mix of the energetic and intellectual, innovative and critical. It is a wonderful course, and I am being encouraged to rethink my own constructions of schooling in very real ways.

Likely, I will talk about this in later posts, but today, I need to write about a conversation I had with another student during our lunch break.

This teacher, Sargeant, teaches geometry to high school students in a fairly progressive school in the South Bronx. She just finished her first year of teaching while a part of the peace corps fellowship at TC. This means she was teaching and earning certification all at the same time. First of all, I think Sargeant has done some pretty incredible things in her classroom: focus on learning mathematics through writing, an innovative trial curriculum that focusses on developing geometry through symmetries, and she started an after-school math club. On top of this, she had a relentlessly supportive principal and a team of dedicated teachers. She had it made right?

It was her last week of teaching, and I asked, “So what are you feeling after the year?” Her answer was first of all, exhausted: it was obvious that she spent everything on those kids.

What has stayed with me though, almost hauntingly, was this thing she said…

I feel like I should be hopeful. But most of my students are failing. I wasn’t good enough for them… I could see how after five years of this, a teacher would be able to say that the students aren’t able to learn, because I’m not sure how long I can feel like I’m not able to teach. Hope? Right. It’s hard enough to have imagination.

Wow. Hope was not enough. Innovative curriculum was not enough. Dedicated, beyond-sleep, work past every contract, blood and tears teaching was not enough. I don’t know how much we recognize teachers like Sargeant. Most measures will probably not reflect the imagination that she is investing into her students… the raw energy devoted to the learning, teaching, planning, and loving.

It seems given that a teacher should have hope and belief that every student in the class can and should succeed, but what happens when someone gets done with their first year teaching having a hard time even imagining this possibility?

It is hard to think about the coming year, knowing that I will not reach all of the students (maybe not even the majority) who are in my classroom. Maybe, Sargeant made a much greater difference than she can recognize. Still, I want to take the time now to start imagining what can be possible, the improbable, even the absurd so that when I finally have my own classroom (and reality has set in), I can remain hopeful. So I guess this is my strategy for now. First, imagine. Then, hope.

I’ve been asked why I want to become a teacher probably 734 times in the last two years. I love the question, really I do, but I never feel like I have the right answer. And it always seems to change.

• “I can’t not work with kids. They are inspiring, amazing, and goofy. Who wouldn’t want to spend their day in a classroom?”
• “I love math, and kids are awesome. Math + awesome kids = math teacher.”
• “Education is a critical social issue and I want to be a part of the group of people making a difference.”
• “Who wouldn’t want a career with the salary, prestige, and social opportunity teaching provides”… oh wait…. woops… they’re still working on that on.

Seriously though. The question of why am I studying to be an educator feels, at times, of dire importance. I figured out yet another answer last week. I was sitting through a forum session in my MfA orientation, and the two panelists were my future teacher advisors.

Halfway through the session, while answering the question, “What should we do to maximize our experience in our masters programs,” one of them paused, scrunched up his face, and in the most wonderful New York accent said:

Look. You do what you want. You read what they give you, you watch the teachers they tell you too. Whateva. Thats not the point. The point is you have a year to learn how to be the best learner you can be. Because those are the best teachers, in my opinion. The ones who learn. Who listen to their students and know where they’re at. You’ve got to take control of your learning and figure out what is going to make you a better student first. That’s whats going to make you a good teacher.

Nothing new. Nothing too profound… I mean, I’ve heard the phrase teacher as learner before. The social constructivists love it: you are the “lead learner” in your classroom. I buy it… but something about what Derrell said stuck with me the rest of the day.

I want to be a teacher because I love being a student. I love learning. I love finding new ways to teach and discovering new things to teach. I love working with people who can show me something new. I love the classroom. And geek-ely I love math. It somehow made sense. So I have, now, another answer to the oft asked-question. I want to be a teacher because I love to learn.

And this is a good thing, as this week I begin a year long masters program here in NYC. This is going to be an incredibly intense year of learning and teaching, and I am so excited to be blogging along the way.