Today, my first official day back, was all about math. During my leave, I've been reading a lot of books about math teaching, especially how to support children developing their sense of number. At our workshop today I shared with the other teachers some of what I have learned and we had some wonderful discussions about our own practice.
In regular teacher preparation, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, there is a huge emphasis on literacy. Over half of my course work was directly or indirectly about developing literacy in a classroom. For math, I had a single course. I'm not sure, historically, how this happened. Teachers have much more leeway traditionally for how they approach literacy in the classroom. Indeed, it is embedded into most parts of our day from the morning meeting to our closing circle. But for math, a teacher is handed a curriculum, many of which are developed based on current theories of development but those theories are never explicitly stated in the curriculum.
I love teaching math. Over time, I've become more and more effective as a math teacher. But through reading these past months, I became frustrated by how much work on math teaching has been done but has been "kept" from the general teaching population.
I was very taken by some work coming out of Austrailia on early numeracy and developing number sense. I had never thought of number sense as a physical sensation, a feeling of number. But, while I looked at the very direct and incremental teaching that this work described, I realized that this was exactly what many kids who struggle with math are missing. When I hear the word "six" I feel the four that are missing to make 10. Kids who have not developed that tangible sense of number memorize that 6+4=10, 4+6=10, 10-6=4, 100-60=40, 400+600=1000 all as discreet, unrelated pieces of information. A child who had an innate sense of number connects and extrapolates with ease. The child who has not made connections becomes more and more confused as more information is added. The child who does feel connections, becomes more and more assured.
So, how does one teach number sense, especially to a child who is older and who feels they "aren't good at math" and has been "helped" by a series of quick fixes and memorization tricks? (Tricks which, I'll admit, I've been guilty of providing to help a child "get it.") It's a question that we'll be wrestling with as a staff throughout our professional development this year and that we invite you to join us in investigating.
To that end, please mark on your calendar November 19 at 7pm, our parent education Math Night. We've planned a fun and informative evening that will really help you understand how we approach math at PCCS. I'm hoping that each of the Heron families will reach out to a new family and invite them to join you at the event. We had tremendous attendance at curriculum night so I know you understand the importance of truly "getting" the education your child is participating in at Prairie Creek.
Until then, I'd love to start a conversation here about math education and your math experiences. What do you remember about math class? How do you "sense" number? What is most important for our children to do? What does it mean to be a proficient mathematician? What does it mean to be passionate about math? Click on "comment" below to join the conversation. (And check out a great discussion about nature and education on the Robin's Blog.) MM
The Rookery 
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