I'm relatively new to the world of Twitter. For the last several years, it just seemed to me that Twitter was Facebook for people with ADD who had shorter thoughts. I changed my mind this summer at the Teacher Leadership Institute when I learned that several of our attendees were tweeting during sessions about the content. In our infinite 20th century wisdom, members of my office scolded them and forbade these grown-ass adults from using social media on their computers during sessions.
That was really all it took to make me decide that I needed a Twitter account and that I would begin tweeting immediately. It's official: I'm a twit.
I'm using Twitter for professional reasons: all my posts are related to the arts, education, creativity, etc. My followers and my followed are made up less of my friends and more of people who have an interest in those topics. One of my favorites has been @brainpicker, Maria Popova. Her tweets are interesting, but the Brainpickings blog is even better. It's full of thoughts on the arts, culture, design, education, creativity - all those things that capture my imagination. (By the way, she tweets like she's in the throws of mania, so if you follow her, plan on having your feed filled. It's good stuff, but sometimes it's hard to keep up with it all.)
One of her tweet's this morning read: "I find it appalling that this school says artists don't need math http://j.mp/nBJfVz Creativity is in cross-pollination http://j.mp/q04y9W." (Go ahead and take a look at that first article.) It has me thinking this morning about math.
I was a singularly terrible math student. Well, not singularly. Actually, I've discovered that my experience mirrors that of many math students. During my matriculation at Daniels Elementary School, I was a pretty decent student. I liked school. I liked my teachers. Well, most of them. I had my favorite subjects (music, language, social studies) but I tried hard in all of them. In 6th grade I began struggling, just a bit, with math. Nothing too terrible mind you.
When I entered junior high school, my mother wanted my twin sister and me to be advanced in our math studies. We had both been in the "gifted program" (a topic for another post) and it was assumed that this would be of great benefit to us in our school careers. So, we did double assignments for 7th and 8th grade math that year. Now, 7th grade was an academic ebb for me. I was being subjected to the whims of puberty and my home life had gotten a little weird. School waned in importance. I still liked some subjects, but others seemed to have less and less value. Math was one of these. I struggled to finish the assignments, but made it through.
When I entered the 8th grade, I was enrolled in Algebra. Here I will confess that I have hated math ever since. I haven't just hated it though, I have been mystified by it. I have felt stupid in every single math class I have had since 8th grade, and struggled to pass them all. My test grades were horrible. I began skipping the homework, too. It was easier to have low math grades because I didn't do the homework, than to do it and let everyone know that I was really lost. I passed Algebra with a C. Geometry was a little better: B. Algebra II: C. Trigonometery: C- (and that was a gift).
So what went wrong?
Well, first off, I had some pretty terrible math teachers. I think I have enough distance now and know enough about teaching to say that with some objectivity. We "did problems" in math class. That was the single teaching strategy employed by my teachers. They "got" math and were perplexed by those who didn't. More - they didn't have time for those of us who didn't. My counterpart in math at the West Virginia Department of Education, Lou Maynus, tells us that everyone can learn math. She told me the other day that she could teach calculus to anyone in our building. I believe her. She uses a variety of strategies, including the application of the most abstract concepts to real-world problems that everyone faces. And she has a lot of empathy, too.
Another thing I realize is that my teachers (and parents) viewed intelligence as a single discreet thing. Everything we know about the brain indicates this isn't the case. (Keep in mind, this was before the work of Howard Gardner became wildly popular.) I'm a reasonably intelligent person in music, art, theatre, language, the social sciences. I'm probably average in the hard sciences and kinesthetic intelligence (my poor performance in sports was due more to lack of strength and speed, not an innate clumsiness). But I'm almost certainly below average intelligence in math.
The assumption that "smart" is one thing has caused many such academic casualties. We know better now, but we still often assume that a student who is brilliant in math should be equally bright in language, or that a student who is an excellent chemist should be able to play guitar. This may be the case, or it may not. Human intelligence is incredibly diverse.
The negative consequences of this thinking are profound. In my case, I ended up narrowing my own curriculum by choice. I elected to take as few math classes as necessary throughout my academic career, as well as science classes that involved a lot of math. I also began evaluating the importance of my coursework based upon whether I thought it would be necessary in my career as a musician.
Now, don't get me wrong here. Students should be free to pursue those interests for which they have talents. Forcing all students to master an identical curriculum is one of the practices that has led us down the path we find ourselves as a nation. I'm glad I was able to take the number of music classes I did in high school and I think every student musician should be free to do so. What I'm suggesting is something else.
What I'm suggesting is this: all learning is good learning. It's not as if learning too much about calculus is going to prevent someone from learning to play the trumpet. Now, it is true that students have limited time in their academic day. Choices must be made, and these can be difficult choices.
But our students need to learn about as many things as they can and as deeply as they can. They need a deep understanding of words, form, movement, pitch, numbers, feelings, and all the rest. They need to learn about the world in all the ways they experience it.
What we know about creativity also suggests that we need to make sure students have the chance to interact with a wide array of disciplines. Creativity generally happens when seeming disparate ideas interact in new ways. Einstein told others that his understanding of music, a discipline whose essence is time, drove his intuition in the discovery of the theory of relativity. And Steve Jobs has made no secret of the fact that much of the design of the Macintosh computer is the result of a single class he took at Reed College in calligraphy.
We also need to stop thinking about education in such narrow terms. We need to acknowledge that students do not have to learn everything in a school building from a teacher. Learning can happen anywhere. (Lest I be mistaken: I don't mean to suggest that arts programs should happen primarily outside of school. Certainly our students can learn much in the arts through those extended learning opportunities, but they can also learn math and science that way.) Schools and teachers need to be transformed into places that inspire students to become independent thinkers and learners, and then help them acquire the resources they need, whether within the walls of academia, or without.
We also need to truly believe that our education never stops. All of us, especially those of us in education, need to model ourselves on Chaucer's Oxford cleric: "Gladly would he learn and gladly teach." We need to have a love affair in this country, not just with education as a system, but with learning, in all its myriad forms.
This manifests itself in many ways in my life. I find myself spending more time at the piano than I used to, and the result is a different type of understanding of harmony especially. It's not that I didn't play before, but I am more curious than I used to be. I'm also trying to correct another of the major deficiencies in my education: my lack of foreign language. My academic experience with foreign language was limited to a single semester of French in college. I enjoyed it, but it didn't seem important to me. Now I'm actively pursuing this interest - Italian this time, instead of French. And I'm using 21st century resources, including Italian language podcasts, blogs and YouTube videos. I don't have time for a class.
I just might take Lou up on her offer, too, and see what calculus I can learn. The creative possibilities seem endless.
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