I forgot our assignment!
Aloha is the most important value I hold. I share this value with my math students on the very first day of class. Math is not the most exciting subject for most students. But I know that I share this value because we need to have love and compassion for one another especially when we're all struggling with a subject that we have some fear of.
I want students to support one another, especially those who struggle. There have been classes where I've been at the bottom at one time or another, and it's so great to have a helping hand from omeone. In the same manner, you turn around and help others in return. Even if it's just to staple your homework! Someone has a stapler to help you out and submit a proper homework.
Most of all, it's the connection you make with fellow students and the instructor when you freely express aloha for one another. Math is not meant to be learned all by yourself in a little cubicle. You need proper discourse and discussion with one another to learn. It's great that the Kahikoluamea Center has extra support like tutors to share in the aloha as well.
Mary Ann
12 hours ago
I really liked that you write that math isn't supposed to be taught in a little cubicle, but in a shared discourse. I never had that experience growing up, and while I like arithmetic and geometry, I dislike higher math. One of my son's (bad) math teachers used to treat students who asked questions with disdain, in the "if you were smart, you'd have understood me the first time" mode. I think discussing math would be a hugely more humane way to understand math. I wish my son could have you as a math teacher (say, are you teaching this summer?).
ReplyDeleteMost definitely! It's the only way I can eat, unfortunately, by being able to teach in the summer. I'm teaching in the second summer session Math 24. I don't feel as though I'm "teaching" math. It seems to me that I introduce concepts and that students have a chance in class to discover how to figure it out by working out problems and comparing answers that everyone has the same problems. Mistakes are meant to be made in a math class! I welcome them because we learn from them. It ought to be a normal expectation. How else do we get theorems established? It's only through sharing, comparing, challenging, and finally agreeing with a whole bunch of people what the final answer ought to be. Or so we think...there's always the chance later on down the road it could be wrong. And that's ok, too.
ReplyDeleteYou symbolize hope for the students when it comes to math education at KCC. How fortunate for them that you are not the engineer but the esteemed math professor! Mahalo for sharing your story and continue to do the good work that you do Mary Ann.
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