The Gift of Thanks

The joy of substituting, every once in a while, you reach someone and help them to understand concepts in review when the teacher leaves work. 

High school geometry.  Multi-step word problems.  My two nemeses.  However, once I stopped pacing the teachers’ lounge grumbling about word problems and no answer key I looked at the pile of worksheets.  Remodeling a home.  Hm, my husband and I have done this several times.  First problem, a fence around the home.  Perimeter.  I can visualize this.  A floor plan of the home with the dimensions.  A need for new floor tile.  Area.  I can do this. 

Once I figure it out, I can help others.  Diagrams.  Figures.  I didn’t want to just give the students the answers.  I wanted to help them see how we get each answer and why we do the steps we do.  Visuals.  Understanding that the fence is not right up against the home but so many feet away from the home, either side, front and back.  And, of course, the floor space in particular rooms, hallways, or entranceways was not rectangular or square.  It had narrow spots, fireplaces, appliances. 

I wanted the students to show all the work so that the teacher could see how we got our answers and thereby the students could see the thinking that goes behind the answers.   

After class, while I was still knee deep in organizing and labeling worksheets, the lovely Bangladesh girl from class came up to my desk. 

“Um,” she said softly, “I want to…thank you…for helping me in geometry class.”  A smile of understanding lit her face.  It glowed. 

I smiled back.  “You’re welcome.”  Helping others understand.  Isn’t that what teaching is all about?    

The Need for a Fourth Grade Math Tutor

From competence to incompetence.  The difference a substitute day can make.

Like I said before, I always try to demonstrate to students on the board how to do the mathematical steps, but when the steps are changed—and no one tells me—then I’m the one who needs the help.  I don’t know.  I could do long division in the old days, but now?  With the “Everyday Math” methods, I need someone to demonstrate to ME how to divide like a fourth grader. 

I wrote on the board 879 divided by 37 in the standard division bar method and proceeded to explain to the class how 37 can’t go into 8, but it can go into 87. 

“Now,” I said, “how many times can…”

A young lady started waving both hands in the air.  I thought she had a medical emergency.  It ended up that I was the emergency.

“That’s not how Mrs. Jones does it.”  She told me.

“Okay,” I told Miss Smarty Pants, offering her the black marker [no chalkboards anymore, remember?].  “Then show me how Mrs. Jones does long division.”             

My eyes started to dry out as I tried to decipher the drawings on the board.  Hieroglyphics were easier to understand.  

“What’s this right hand line down the side of the division problem?”  I asked Miss Pants.

“That’s so you can divide into the whole number,” she told me.

“But I thought that’s what we were doing with the standard, curved division symbol.”

She just rolled her eyes and began writing round numbers down the outside of the right hand line.

“Um,” I tried to regain the upper hand in the class as snickers rang out when the students watched my brow become one big furrow.

“Why are you estimating?”  I asked.  “Don’t we want the correct answer?”

“Estimating’s easier,” Miss Pants assured me as she rewrote the problem as 40 into 800 and then estimated the answer as 20.

 “Easier for whom?”  I desperately needed a few Tylenol.  I watched as she next took 40 into 80 and then added up figures outside another vertical line.  The board was covered in mathematical computation.

I am a firm believer that the more steps there are in a problem, the more chance for error.  But I certainly couldn't tell Miss Pants that.  The substitute teacher had now become the student.