TPI Response

 

My scores on the TPI were quite polar, especially when contrasted with those of some other students that I've had the opportunity to look at on their own blogs. I scored particularly strongly on Nurturing and Developmental, which doesn't surprise me. I also expected that I might score Recessive for the Transmissions index. I think the truest sign that the test is accurate is that I could have predicted it very well, which I suppose only means that I am consistent, but at least that's something!

Generally, I feel good about my results. Despite the perhaps negative connotation of the term "recessive," I genuinely do believe that material transmission is one of the least important aspects of teaching, so I am not concerned to see that belief reflected in the TPI. This does mean, especially as a new teacher, that I will likely have to justify some practices to administration and the like, considering the fact that our current model of assessment places emphasis on this pillar, but I feel strongly enough that I am looking forward to these discussions rather than afraid of them (well, maybe a little afraid). 

Curriculum Review

 The first thing that caught me off guard while reviewing the curriculum was the variety of courses offered to fulfil requirements. This is less to do with the specific content or philosophy of the curriculum, but I think it is emblematic of the approach that the Department of Education is taking with regards to student choice and embracing all elements of mathematics. It's possible that these courses have been offered for many years, but I know that my own high school in BC only offered two courses at the Grade 11 level and three at the Grade 12 level. Obviously, there are also administrative constraints, but I was very impressed by the inclusion of things like History of Mathematics and Statistics, neither of which were offered at my school. 

The second surprise (also pleasant) was the heavy emphasis on teaching math for citizenship. In the past, I have seen and heard strong focus on teaching math for personal use and use for employment. These have some merit, but generally are persuasive to only a fraction of students. The emphasis on numeracy and citizenship is I believe a much stronger argument which applies to all students. Especially in the data-rich climate that we live in, understanding the use of statistics and number to inform opinion is crucial. Seeing the curriculum specifically draw attention to the "ethical use of mathematics" was especially shocking, as I think of math in school as working very hard traditionally to avoid such realms.

Charting Mathways in BC

 In looking at the graduation requirements for the Dogwood Diploma, it is clearly outlined that a student must have taken at minimum one Math 10 course (which could be either Workplace Mathematics or Foundations of Math and Precalculus) as well as one Math 11 or Math 12 course. I have not included grade 8 in the below diagram because there is only a single option which then leads directly to Math 9, so it has no bearing on the variety of pathways. This means that there is an extraordinary variety of potential pathways that a student could follow in the BC math curriculum. 

One might be inclined to point out that not taking some courses precludes you from take a related course (for example Precalculus must be taken before Calculus) but this is not technically true. While it is strongly recommended that this be the case, students are free to enroll in whatever class they choose provided they have support. I know this to be true because I myself took Calculus 12 and Precalculus 12 concurrently, having only had that option due to some scheduling conflicts which arose from trying to take advanced art classes as well as calculus (they had apparently not planned for such a possibility). 

Eisner Response

 My first 'stop' in this reading is when Eisner says "it is possible to create a school environment in which the taking of initiative becomes an increasingly important expectation..." (pp. 88). I am reminded of my experience as a summer camp leader, training new staff members. The most oft-mentioned buzzword in performance reviews is "initiative." It's an extremely difficult skill to teach, requiring a learner to make bold and occasionally wrong choices. In school, those wrong choices are harshly punished, either socially or by grading. Our current system is not well designed to foster initiative, at least by my own estimation. A shift towards inquiry-based learning will certainly help provide opportunities for more students to take initiative and I would also like to see more focus on building initiative on areas of education that are less content-based. For example, I remember having a math teacher in high school who asked for student input on when assignments should be due based on how much content they contained. That was revolutionary to me as a student and hugely increased my buy-in to the class.

My second 'stop' was when Eisner discussed the work of Lepper et al. (1978) on the perils of a rewards-based system. I stopped here because another of the classes I am currently enrolled in was just discussing the educational approach of behaviourism. As far as I can tell, the course took an uncritical view of behaviourism, provided it was approached in a humane fashion. In my own experience, though, the perils that Lepper describes are very real. I think that we do a disservice to the very enjoyable and meaningful activity of learning when we assume that students will require a reward in order to participate. I am not so naive as to believe that all students will joyfully participate immediately upon being given an activity, but I think that a systematized reward schema will lead to system-motivated students. That is to say: when we give students a framework for what to expect and what is valued, we should not be surprised when they adhere rigidly to this framework and do not creatively strain against its limitations.

Another stop (albeit brief) was at the mention of curved grading systems. I find the idea of a curved grading system immensely frustrating, both from the perspective of an educator and a student. If the quality of work/understanding is at an A level, it shouldn't matter what the understanding of the other students in the class is. Grade curving can lead to some truly illogical behaviours: I remember my mother telling me a story about a teacher she had who would give a student a 98% if they got very question right because they needed to learn that "nobody's perfect." The great irony is that students would then try to drop only a single mark on large tests so that they could get 99% - a better score than if they'd gotten the question correct. Obviously this is a wild example, but it also illustrates what I spoke to above about students living within the provided framework.

As another minor stop, I want to just note how much I love the term "convivial" in this context. Overall, I really resonated with this reading and its critiques of industrialized schooling! And what a powerful couplet to end the poem! I myself am something of a poet and found that a phenomenal mantra for educators.

Finally, with reference to current curriculum, I always find curriculum documents a bit of a paradox. If everything they aspired to were to happen, then our schools would be much better, I think. The problem is that they are often vaguely aspirational but lack the will to change our null curriculum. In another of my classes, we talked about the three (often conflicting) goals of school: Traditional, Progressive, and Socializing. We simply cannot meet all of these goals at once, which is something that curriculum tries to do. In my mind, the factory school system is not root cause but a victim of a culture which both venerates and sublimates the individual. I don't have a solution for that, but I am glad to read other people with more experience than myself thinking about similar things.

Battleground Schools Response

 My first "stop" was at the table outlining the different modes of viewing math education and its goals. Most of these were familiar divides to me and I knew quite clearly which side I landed on. The last point, though, about "teacher-proofing" curriculum, was not something I have heard before. It really hammers home to me how many challenges arise from the factory model of schooling. This is something I've had discussions about in other courses, so I am glad to be able to make another connection to it here.

The second part of the reading, that which focuses on complicating factors, is essentially the subject of my undergraduate thesis project. Rather than recreate all of the connections that I have, both personal and academic, to the section, I have instead linked the artist statement (which addresses the academic grounding for the artwork) here. If you have a moment, I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts. One connection in particular that I would like to highlight is that between this article and the work of Sheila Tobias, author of Overcoming Math Anxiety. Much of her work deals with a more individual scale, but it touches on the same problems and systems of thought.

As I continued to read, I was struck first by some amount of despair at the thought that the battle between conservative and progressive mathematics education has gone on for so long, despite seeming wins for the progressive camp, when it seems as though every progressive win slides back into conservativism. After thinking that, though, it occurred to me that my own math experiences (at least in secondary school) were largely progressive, inquiry-based, and exploratory. Noticing this in my own thinking, I wondered what had given me the impression that the conservative model still dominated. The answer, I think, is that this model and perception of mathematics is still our cultural attitude towards math, even if the practice in classrooms has shifted. There is more inertia, I think, in our culture than in our classrooms. I'd love to hear what other students' experiences in the math classroom were like to get a bit of a survey (albeit biased) of the current state of the field of battle.