Session 4 Reading Reflection

September 19, 2012

As teachers, we want students to excel in the classroom, and we want them to have the same desire for learning educators have.  And, I believe parents, in general, want children to be successful in education.  But, not all parents know what to do, how to do it, or feel comfortable communicating with their child’s teacher or school personnel.  Often one’s culture will dictate how a parent responds to teacher contacts.  Therefore, before I begin to understand what my student knows about math or their motivation for math, I must consider how a student’s social class or culture impact motivation in the mathematics classroom.  I need to understand, from a social perspective, students, their parents, and family culture.  I must be aware of what parents understand about math concepts as well as the parent’s motivation and value of education before I can work to change student views.  Home environment, social class, and family culture have an impact on student understanding of math as well as student motivation and desire in being academically successful.

The information, ideas, and fraction practice presented by Van De Walle on pages 65-75 discuss a variety of issues related to the concepts of solving problems using fractions.  The idea of the inverse relationship between the number of parts and size of parts, according to Van De Walle, is a difficult concept for students to understand since elementary grades focus mostly on whole-number concepts.  I am curious, in earlier grades, the teachers approach to fractions.  I would imagine a lot of hands on and use of manipulatives with guided instruction are used.  In contrast, most of my elementary experiences in the general classroom were focused on language development.  And often when a deaf student is in the elementary grades, the focus of instruction is to provide as much teaching in language as possible.  Delayed language impacts every subject area.  But math, I believe, tends to be focused on much less than it should be.  This is not always the case, but does happen often.   Yet even with language delays, how do I get students and parents to understand the importance of math education for deaf students, more specifically understanding of inverse fractions?

In order to get children to understand any concept or idea, I feel parents are a vital asset in a child’s education. Thus as I begin planning for instruction, for example, fraction activities or lessons, I would send home a list of terms and matching math signs with activities for families to do together attempting to create opportunity for development of concepts in fun, stress free, and creative ways.   For instance, one activity I might suggest parents try is an activity my family always enjoyed doing together.  Most Friday evenings for most of my oldest daughter’s elementary and middles school years involved making and eating pizza at home.  Cooking and eating pizza is a great way for kids and parents to get involved in conversations and discussions about fractions.   In fact, any kind of cooking or baking uses not only fractions but inverse fractions.  Using measuring cups and measuring spoons are also great ways to introduce and practice inverse fractions.  Students have tangible items which serve a real purpose showing the use of inverse number relationships.  Furthermore, these activities give students and parents a chance to work together which provide opportunity for deepening and building family relationships and communication skills as well as helping students build an intrinsic motivation for math by showing usefulness and practical application of concepts.  It may take time, but I believe teachers can work toward helping parents understand the importance of their role in their child’s ability to value mathematics education.

In addition, the role culture plays in the way motivational strategies are implemented by teachers in classrooms is lacking significant research according to Middleton.  I ask, “what role a family’s culture, social class, and parent knowledge play in affecting motivation in the classroom”.  When I think about the role culture plays in my instruction style and the lack of research, I should also consider the role a student’s culture impacts their learning style and motivation toward education and the lack of research pertaining to this topic.  My parents taught and modeled the importance of a good education and passed the idea to me.  I believed in the value of education and passed that to my children.  Thus, I believe one’s social class, family, and culture impacts a child’s motivation or value of education.  The child’s value of education has the ability to impact the direction of the child’s future.   If I believe social class guides or directly impacts a child’s future, then I must consider how a parent struggling to raise kids with limited support and resources thinks about education.  If I am that parent, do I teach my children the value of a good education or how to survive?  If my children are dodging bullets on the way to school, do I teach the value of education or the value of survival skills?  If I believe ones social class impacts all areas of a child’s life, certainly motivation toward math education is impacted.   If the child’s social class is guiding their motivation then a concept of mathematical ability, positive or negative, has possibly been established long before entering my classroom.  What I must do is figure out how to undo the negative implications and work to instill a new value and understanding of the importance of math.  I must be able to teach math in a way students begin to feel it is beneficial to themselves, their family, and their social class.   Math has to become real for the students.  My strategies and instruction should relate to the likes and dislikes of middle school students as well as to their world, their culture, and their social class.

Furthermore, approaching math from a middle school student’s mindset may be necessary to appropriately motivate students.  I need to think about how middle school students feel, think, and react to situations.   Middle school is an awkward time with hormonal changes, puberty, and recognition of self in relation to groups.  Middle school students need stability and guidance in developing good self concepts and relationships among other peers.    Middleton's example, Grace, from chapter one seems to be motivated more by the first group in which she is working and the topic of the lesson.  She also seems to function better when she is comfortable within a certain group of peers.  As soon as she is requested to change groups her whole attitude toward the lesson changes.  She shuts down and withdraws from the group.  This was of particular interest to me as I can imagine how I would have felt being the only girl in a group of boys when I was in middle school.  This would have caused me to shut down as well.  Although Mr. Lawson was trying to use Grace as a role model, she felt as she was being punished.  As a teacher using groups for instruction, I should pay attention to the response I am getting from my students when groups shifts are necessary.  Realizing, it may not be most advantageous to students to continually regroup based on, for example, not wanting them to get too comfortable with each other.   Since I believe group work not only benefits learning math and also helps instill values of teamwork and collaboration, I would establish groups for longer periods of time helping to establish stable, trusting relationships among students while providing guidance in how groups should function and perform. 

Along with providing guidance and stability in a class setting, students need to see their teachers excited about the subject being taught.  Am I passionate about my calling?  Are all teachers passionate about their calling? If I ever lose my passion for assisting students and families in learning to establish an effective means of communication in their homes and families, it will be time to leave the field.  How can I expect families to get excited if I come in with an irritated, stressed, pessimistic attitude about language?  I cannot.  I definitely found Fires in the Bathroom an interesting read.  Especially, the student comments about having a passionate teacher as one way to motivate school attendance, or to motivate a student to pay attention in class.  It is so true, when a teacher is passionate about a subject kids pick up on that passion.  I remember sitting in classes where the teacher followed the same boring pattern every day.  It seemed as if they hated their job.  It is also difficult to interpret for a teacher who is uninspired.  I am supposed to interpret in the spirit most like that of the teacher, according to ethical guidelines.   I know if it is difficult to stay focused when interpreting, I can only imagine how hard it is for a deaf student to follow along.

Kids need an exciting and encouraging school environment.  As an adult I can monitor myself, I can motivate myself knowing the initial outcomes.  Yet, I do not believe middle school students have a fully developed cognitive ability to process and analyze the future.  These kids are still in the here and now moments thinking from the deep limbic system and not the pre-frontal cortex.  I believe middle school students continue to need lots of hands on activities. They need activities, interactions, role playing, and time to think about it.  I know this works in English classes with literary terms and characters.  I suppose this concept could be used in any subject.  Math, I trust, would be a great place to role play.  Instead of students being characters from books, they could be characters from the math problems representing the algorithms being taught.  It’s a long shot and might not work, but I at least like the idea.

Thinking back over the past several week’s readings considering how motivation is learned by students , then as teachers and parents we should strive to instill this love of education very early, much earlier than middle school.  It needs to come not only from teachers and school, it needs to begin from parents and home.  If parents do not have a value for education they will not be able to teach their children to value education.  So I think the question or research needs to look at why parents do not value education or appear not to value education.  If it is my perception only, why does it appear parents do not value education?   Do they not value education or are they so burdened by low wage jobs, lack of enough money, or lack of sufficient resources their child’s education is left up to those who have the training.  I am certain I alone cannot fully convince my students to love education or to instill a value of education if the family does not change its own value system.   I believe parents are the key to improving student achievement across this country.  And if we cannot get parents passionate about education and collaboration, it will continue to be a challenge to instill the value of education to students.