Math has always been hard for me. However, I did not figure this much out until I was in the fourth grade. I was constantly being yelled at and punished for not understanding the material that was being presented to me. I remember having to stay after school for detention to work on math problems that I had previously gotten wrong earlier in the day. Although I know that my teacher thought she was helping me, I definately was not feeling the love. I felt as though I was being singled out and overall, it made me feel dumb.
I see now that there were so many other ways that my teacher could have tried to reach out and help me when I wasn't conprehending the school work. I am definately a hands-on type of girl, and that alone would have helped me tremendously. Fractions were my worst nightmare! Blocks, or math pieces of some sort would have helped me figure some of the problems out and I would have caught up with the class more easily.
For whatever reason, my teacher chose the method in which she did, and though my parents were giving me extra help at home, I still wasn't getting it. Even today, I fully and whole-heartedly believe that if she would have chosen a hands-on approach to teach me, give me something visual, then I would not suck so horribly at mathematics! Though a lot of this was up to me, it is still the teacher's job to teach. As in the video we watched in class on Tuesday, "We always assume that when teachers teach, students learn". This is, in most cases untrue. It simply depends on the method that is chosen to teach each subject.
Reading this I could completely relate to your struggles in math. Growing up, I started off in accelerated classes for math, going to a special classroom for the subject in 4th grade with a few of my peers. But I remember specifically the unit where we learned mean, median, and mode. For whatever reason, I was NOT getting it. I ended up continuing to struggle in the class and got the only C i have ever received. In 5th grade, I dropped down to regular math and had a much better time. But during Jr. high we again learned about mean, median, and mode and I got it on the first try. When we talked about the Direct Learning Theory in class, I immediately thought about this example, because I was too young to comprehend the content the first time around.
ReplyDeleteI also can relate to not understanding fractions, and agree that since it is so abstract, a tangible representation would have helped a ton, maybe measuring cups (since that is something a child would already have exposure to) would be good to introduce the topic, and then I do agree that blocks would be successful for adding and manipulating those types of problems.