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Thanks to everyone who reached out when I said I was pressing pause on this account.
It’s still going to be a while- even non-COVID news is about changes occurring due to COVID, and I don’t have the stomach for it.
Ironically, I’ve been coping by making SIR and logistic models.
It’s still going to be a while- even non-COVID news is about changes occurring due to COVID, and I don’t have the stomach for it.
Ironically, I’ve been coping by making SIR and logistic models.
Tonight I finally heard from the last student with whom I haven’t had contact since we locked the school doors, and I just lost it. “I’m fine, I’ve just been busy taking care of my brother,” and all of my relief and concern and anger and fear broke me all at once.
I’ve cobbled together enough videos and worksheets and Desmos activities and discussion boards to make a reasonable excuse of classroom replacement, and I’m still left knowing that it’s not enough, in multiple ways.
The math my students learn this year won’t match what I could have taught them. There’s no possibility for me to catch their confusion in the moment, and there’s no opportunity for us to find an interesting rabbit hole in the content.
Most importantly, it’s a heavy reminder that I don’t care about math. I enjoy math; I understand it and can do it well. I even have a talent for explaining it to others.
But if I really cared about math, there are much more profitable jobs I could have had.
But if I really cared about math, there are much more profitable jobs I could have had.
To paraphrase Halt and Catch Fire (Best tv show of the 2010s. There’s never been a better time to binge it!):
Math isn’t the thing. It’s the thing that gets us to the thing.
Math isn’t the thing. It’s the thing that gets us to the thing.
Why would we teach if it wasn’t for human connection? If we didn’t want to invest in others?
What pitiful excuse for ‘school’ have we created where we pretend a worksheet on factoring is all we need to ask of a student?
And how guilty of that was I before?
What pitiful excuse for ‘school’ have we created where we pretend a worksheet on factoring is all we need to ask of a student?
And how guilty of that was I before?
I promise at some point I will go back to tweeting out math questions from the news each day. I use those questions all the time in my classes, and I’m always excited when I hear one of you found them useful.
But I likely won’t do them again until I have students I can ask in person, because I don’t really care what the answers are. I care about the opportunity for discussion, and the possibility of learning something new. I care about connecting with my students.
That’s the thing.
That’s the thing.
