in a more patient world, i would be able to:
(a) develop an equal parts competent/mocking/insightful dialogue between the Platonic (in a very cheap way) characters of Inductive and Deductive
(b) infuse thier voices with a glaring and pastiche cold war subtext (does not democracy deduce? does not a single, unfallible cry boil in the hearts of every worker? )
(c) draft a faux screenplay in which the voices are played by out-of-context superheroes, and in which their megaphone/thesaurus battle is passed off as a 2nd tier batman vs. superman crossover ("once again... a greater evil... universes collide... a difficult partnership... the medicine or the disease... will america never learn?").
(d) produce, direct, and star in the film - as both characters.
(e) write the trade paperback adaptation of the film - complete with a median insert of movie stills.
(f) turn in (e) as my blog entry.
instead:
i'll talk about how inductive teaching methods have always made more sense to me as meaningful forums for learning. in fact, the inductive moment is exactly the moment of meaning itself - when a student, as a learner-creator, fixes the indellible value of progeny upon an item of knowledge. it is their moment, and something derived of their language - whatever that is. on the other hand, deduction seems - at it's hastily reflected-upon core - to be a look into the consequences of a set of "meanings," and in this respect a sure enough avenues for second-tier meanings: curious stitches that in turn depend on the certainty of a loop. ask cantor, or godel, or anyone else i'm fumbling to reference. uh... it's like communism and capitalism... and how neither can exist in isolation... yet neither in harmony... this is nothing like cantor... but both make excellent halloween costumes...
of course, teaching inductively - which consists of priming an environment for individual response - takes more time. and there's the whole leading a horse to water stuff (because maybe this a horse that doesn't drink water - it depends on a substance necessary for its methane-based chemical structure [which is a concievable alternative to our carbon-based whatever], which may act as a poison for us. or a nonsequitor. like a melody. sing to the methane horse. sing!) and the whole gathering each of this somewhat personal discoveries into a communicable whole.
but, there are many more "a-ha's!" which is nice. so i try and have a small inductive exercise to each new lesson - sometimes it turns into its own lesson (time), sometimes it flops (methane horse/language), sometimes it does OK ("a-ha!"). like for solving linear systems by graphing:
in the event that students can graph lines (sometimes they can't, even if they're in algebra ii, and even if they're 12th graders), you can say: "here are two lines. graph both of them on the same coordinate plane. what do you notice? what else could have happened? what information can you tell me about what happened? why don't you have your binder out? why are you touching him? who are you?" and so forth.
#3: success story
i have two that i want to talk about
(3.1) hand turkeys, et al.
i am very generous with extra-credit, especially when it's couched in absurdity or creativity. a constant venue: a bonus section at the end of my tests, which essentially allows a student to make up for a missed problem as long he or she is willing to laugh at himself/herself/me. so far i have assigned the following (which i am more than willing to accept from any of you - for which you will recieve 5 pts):
1. Our class mascot – the large yellow spider named Hennessey – seems to have passed on to better windows and bigger dreams. Please write a short poem in his honor. Use at least one mathematical word or phrase.
2. Draw a flattering picture of Mr. Molina.
3. Write a poetic/freestyle/whatever-you-call-it tribute to the “teepee” method of adding fractions.
4. Draw a humorous comic strip about your adventures in Mr. Molina’s math class. Possible characters: you, your classmates, your cellphone, your homework, Mr. Molina, Hennessey the Spider, the Teepee Method, Alice, Reebok Classic sneakers, the Not Math Box, a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, etc.
5. Last night, Mr. Molina fell asleep reading the Algebra II text book. What did he dream about? You may draw a picture, make a comic strip, or write a paragraph.
needless to say, (1) i'm an unrepentant egomanaic who masqeurades as a cultural theory enthusiast, (2) i've gotten some amazing bonus responses.
however, my most "successful" of these silly things were my hand turkeys (you all know what a hand turkey is...), which i assigned the thursday and friday before thanksgiving break as a spur of the moment 5pt extra credit opportunity. i had originally intended this to be something completed during break (with construction paper, glitter, and dry macaroni), but at some point a student offered to put a hand turkey on my front board as a submission, which i allowed - thereupon beginning an avalanche of brilliance upon my walls. this happened on the friday before break, and - as fridays are my test days - students would go up to the board (without directions to do so, mind you) and add his or her hand to the mix - with different colors sometimes; and scenery; and commentary (endless "eat me!"s and "don't eat me's!" and the well-crafted "run and run as fast as you can/you can't catch me, i'm the turkey hand!"); and/or intentional sloppiness (one awkward turkey amazingly labeled as "my little pony").
pure bliss. creative. absurd. 5 pts.
(3.2) haywood
jeremy haywood's test grades look like this: 50, 29, 44, 109.
after receiving his last test grade, jeremy went to the front of the class and thanked them - tearfully clutching the rolled up 109 with oscar speech overstatement - for being quiet sometimes and letting him learn. of course - they booed him back to his seat.
i had a soft spot for jeremy from the first week of school - caught by his flair for the well-judged goof-off moment, and, well, the fact that he's generally adorable. however, it became clear early on that - charm aside - haywood wasn't performing well in the class. conversations with him revealed a general lack of confidence in math (comments a la "i do well in my other classes... i just get into math class and my brain stops working" and "i think i understand it when i'm in your class, but then i get to the test and... nothing"), and a love for the game of baseball - which jeremy was afraid he would not be able to play this year if his grades in my class did not approve. conversations with his mother were of the same effect. i encouraged jeremy to come to my tutoring sessions (at the time, every wednesday after school), and he - like many others - promised to show up but never did.
eventually, however, he wandered in on a wednesday and we had some time to focus on the objectives in class that never seemed to stick. somewhere in this mix, something began to click in jeremy's head - and solutions seemed to come for the first time, and then continued, seeming easier and easier. from a testing perspective, it seemed that all he needed was the initial spark of confidence; haywood came into the next test confident and energetic, and gave the aforementioned oscar-winning performance.
now it's a matter of keeping haywood's confidence up, and getting him to do all of his homework. there's also a strangely tragic subtext that always seems to be pulling at him (nothing new for adolesence, i imagine) - comments about wanting to just leave mississippi and go to a place where he doesn't know anyone and can start everything over, voiced awkwardness about thanksgiving vacation spent in alabama with the family of his mother's boyfriend, and pastoral fantasies about having nothing to do but play baseball all day. again - nothing new.
#4: reflections on summer blogs
a list of things that have stayed the same (when so much else has changed):
1. my voice is still (and will always be) nasal
2. i should write more haikus
3. i'm still (and will mostly likely always be) a rambly mess, still stuck in meta-bullshit and standup theory
4. i always have a strange dialogue going on with myself
5. the line "where can i find this chief trees" is still endlessly funny
6. i still shake my fist at the sky
7. the sense of being "modeled a situation of little/no accountability, and ... [developing] a teaching routine in a sink-or-swim environment of little beyond peer support" was indeed an early taste of my teacher reality, as is the awkward stampede of high-pressure assessment that just sort of waltzes in from time to time (the most recent being the IB programme's audit of jim hill occurring on friday)
8. i've never really learned how to write on the board and monitor the class at the same time
9. i still think that my summer training could have been vastly more helpful/relevant
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