A Discourse on Discourses

I decided to focus this blog on our class discussion a few days back and the thoughts and ideas it generated for me. I also would like to stress these thoughts are my own personal feelings and not meant to be directed at any one person who may disagree. If you disagree with what I have to say I will not be offended by any comments you might leave. In fact I would welcome them. After all this is a learning experience and if we're afraid of opinions we won't ever strengthen our own.

I would like to start off by revisiting the subject of teachers' roles in regards to molding a student's primary or secondary Discourse(just for clarification I will be using the same capitalization scheme as in the reading). I still stand by the assertion I made that as teachers, our primary responsibility is to teach students our specific content in a way that they will understand it. That is what our employers expect of us, that is what parents expect from us, and quite frankly that is what our students expect from us. Now please don't mistake me for a cold-hearted, only logical never feeling, constantly analytic math teacher. I'm not. I don't want to be and hope I never will be. It is just a fact that remains a part of our profession. To quote a professor at our very own university who, among other classes, teaches a classroom management course, "You're not hired to be their friend, you're hired to be their teacher."

I think the temptation is there for all of us to want to make something more out of our students than they enter the year with. It's a natural inclination for all of us. If we weren't compassionate and caring towards others we wouldn't be working so hard to get a job that pays so little and requires so much. So I fault no teacher who has a desire to reach out and help a struggling student become a "better" person by somehow influencing their primary Discourse. But who's to say what a better person really is? I certainly can't help a student of Jewish heritage become a better Jew. I wouldn't even know where to start to with a student from South America in order to make that student a better person according to their culture. And I wouldn't even attempt to try and make a young lady a better woman because her entire gender confuses the heck out of me (just ask my wife). The list could go on but I think you get the point. I'm not qualified to make those kind of judgments about students. My Discourse is not shared by them. When teachers try and force good values and beliefs onto their students they can often time do more harm than good. It's just not something I think we as teachers should be doing.

Now I would like to make special mention of the word force that I used in the paragraph above. To force or even try to force a set of beliefs or values on a student is wrong. However, that doesn't mean that we should be lifeless blobs that are only good for reciting facts. No, we are people of value too. We have a primary Discourse as well as many secondary Discourses. It's part of who we are and without them we wouldn't be teaching. We shouldn't hide them at all. But wait you might say, doesn't that go against what you just said about not forcing things on students? I don't believe so would be my response. By being ourselves we are exposing our students to a Discourse. However, the distinction comes by us not extending our Discourse beyond ourselves or evaluating our students based solely on that Discourse. Part of learning is making choices. By being ourselves we are only throwing more options into the pot of Discourses that a student can choose from. As long as their choice is free from our direct influence I believe we have stayed within out bounds.

I also really liked the comment in class about how removing bias from our teaching is impossible because we wouldn't be teachers if we weren't biased towards our subject. With this concept I heartily agree but I would question the word choice slightly. I think enthusiasm would be a better word. To me enthusiasm is a driving force, something that motivates us to become better than we currently are. On the other hand, I think bias is judgmental in nature and a lens through which we evaluate others. I believe it is possible to have enthusiasm, and indeed I encourage it, without having bias. To put it more concretely, I love math and will teach it with passion but I will never dislike students solely because they don't share my love. That's what I meant when I said we need to eliminate bias from our teaching. It's the judgmental aspect that has no place in a classroom designed to foster learning. If we can master that then I know every student who walks through out door will benefit, regardless of what Discourse they bring with them.

I could probably go rambling on for quite a while more but I think I'll stop. Hopefully my point came across with some semblance of clarity. I realize that I made no direct application to teaching math but this principle is universal in nature and thus applies as well as any other to my subject. It's these subtleties of teaching that make it such a complex art form and which challenge and drive me to become better. To quote one other professor in the math department, "Teaching is nothing like brain surgery. It's far more complex." And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Learning to Read and Reading to Learn

I love to read. Now this wasn't always the case though. Somewhere in my later elementary or early middle school years I had a life changing experience/punishment. My parents were concerned with how much TV my sister and I watched every day. While we were both active in sports it seems like that was all we did, sports or TV or sometimes TV with friends. Well my mom decided enough was enough and took the TV out of our house. I thought I was going to die! At this point I was a good student and an above average reader but I rarely picked up a book for fun. All that changed when the TV left. I found myself bored a lot. Shortly thereafter, I somehow I ended up turning to books for my entertainment. It was like a revelation when I discovered the "shows" in my head were way better than anything on the TV. I started reading so much that my mom ended up yelling at me multiple times because I wasn't going to bed and just staying up all night reading. A little over a year later when we got the TV back I wasn't nearly as interested in it and really only used it to play video games based on the books I was reading. I will be forever grateful to my parents who forced reading on me by banishing the TV.
However, I must add that I am a very picky reader. Growing up I was enthralled by Science-Fiction and especially Star Wars books. I read every Star Wars book my library had and even requested ones from other libraries. I still enjoy those books but not as obsessively as when I was younger. I feel that the Science-Fiction genre of literature really helped push me toward mathematics. Everything in those books is advanced. Even simple things that you wouldn't think of needing technology for are improved upon in those books. I wanted to have all those things from an early age. I don't remember any specific light bulb moment or anything like that but at some point in my middle school years it dawned on me that mathematics was the key to creating the world that I loved to read about. I didn't know how exactly math could do this but I knew that math allowed us to improve technology and that especially computers where powered by math. This has been a huge driving force behind my love of mathematics; it's potential for creation of new advanced technology. And I feel it stemmed from my love of Science-Fiction
Sadly, my public education math classes never really lived up to my dreams. I struggled to see the connections because all I was given to read was text book. Now I love math but despise text books. They're not written to be read, only referenced, in my opinion. It wasn't until 11th grade in AP Calculus did a teacher give me small bits of what I had hoped to discover. Still, there was no reading to back it up.

It wasn't until college that I was exposed to math reading material that I actually enjoyed. In college I was introduced to trade books on math that read like a conversation with a well versed mathematician rather than a stuffy old lecturer. I love those books because they expose me to the capabilities of math without bogging me down with extreme details of how to do every step. If my interest is peaked enough, I can always go back to the text books and look the steps up. I've also discovered in college that reading my peers' thoughts and ideas through online forums is very useful. They often explain things in ways that I actually understand rather than in a prescribed manner that the teacher has been using for years. My final discovery of mathematical texts has come from the use of applets that illustrate mathematical ideas. These creations are wonderful at conveying powerful ideas with little or no text to get bogged down in. This in turn allows me to write my own texts in my head in a language that makes perfect sense to me.

I think my experience with reading mathematical and mathematically themes texts will help me with my future students. I've experience the drive that can be created in someone when they truly have an interest in something. Math applies to just about everything in life and all I need to do is identify my students' interests and then open their eyes as to how math applies to it. That is much easier said than done but I know it can work. I plan on using trade books to further my students' understanding of the math they are interested in. I know the common perception is that these books are too advanced for secondary education students but I beg to differ. The students may not understand the details but just like my Star Wars books, even completely foreign or new words can be learned over repeated exposure and with time things become clearer. My love of technology is also a benefit I will bring to my classroom. The youth of today are always striving to have the latest technology. Then why not use it in my class? I love it, they love it and all I need to do is introduce it and I think my students will just run with it. Before they know it they will be reading texts they never dreamed of reading before and possibly even enjoying it. And heaven forbid any student actually enjoy math :)