A Nail in the Coffin of Arithmetic

The math teacher in me died a little tonight. I was in Target and noticed that Milton Bradley has released a Monopoly Electronic Banker edition. Instead of having to count out and add up the money by hand, players just swipe ATM cards and their funds are credited or debited electronically. It's a board game for budding Paris Hiltons.

I love me my spreadsheets, Quicken and online banking, but come now, is nothing sacred? What's next Yahtzee dice that add themselves up? Scrabble tiles that automatically rearrange themselves into words? Why not include the answers on the FRONT side of the Trivial Pursuit cards? Perhaps we can make checker pieces that jump themselves, so the kids can just watch. Lest our children think too hard!

Apparently, we are now going to try to do to our kinds minds what we've already done to their bodies. It's not enough to drive them about, let them sit in front of the tube for five hours a day, and stuff them with sweets. Now we must help their brain's atrophy too. Sure, sure, it's just a little game... until there's no one left in our country who can add!

Resist, parents, resist. Generations of children have learned to appreciate the difference between 5, 50 and 500 thanks to those pink, blue and orange little bills. Don't let it end now.

Happiness is Teaching Science

I’ve been teaching science again this year and I remembered the most astonishing thing:

My students are deeply curious, enthusiastic children who love to learn.

When Bad Kids Smile

For the longest time, my entire first two years of teaching, nothing drove me more crazy than when my ill-behaved kids got in trouble and smiled. It shocked, repulsed, and angered me to the core to be telling a child about the consequences of their disruptive behavior and find their reaction was a broad, plastic smile. I’d been known to double punishments for kids who smiled when they got in trouble.

Then, one keynote speaker forced me to rethink this entirely. She was talking about the cultural misunderstandings that plague educators teaching outside of their home community (which is, sadly, almost every educator I personally know). She specifically referenced this issue of smiling. Among the middle class, she said, you smiled only when you were happy, and the proper reaction to getting in trouble was to look as downcast and remorseful as possible.

Among poor kids and poor families, however, the smile had an entirely different meaning. Certainly, some kids smiled because they were glad to see their class distracted and their teacher perturbed, she said, but more often, it was a defense mechanism. Poor kids, who live in a world where violence is much more prevalent, put on a smile in order to disarm their attacker and deescalate the situation. A smile shows that it’s not that serious, there’s no reason to break out the gun, knife or belt.

I wasn’t convinced, but this left me thinking. Through this lens, I looked at who was smiling in trouble. Sure enough, many of the kids who I knew came from “rougher” lives/homes were the ones who adopted the smile, even the ones who weren’t incessant behavior issues. This was an enormously helpful insight into the minds and lives of many of my kids. Now, instead of getting angry and increasing the punishment for smiling kids, I simply give a very similar, tight, sad grimace back. I’m hoping my “smile” conveys that I am not going to hit them and allows them to listen to what I’m trying to say.