Sunday, June 9, 2013

One peril of "the way we were taught"...

I've just started reading "Sensible Mathematics" by Steven Leinwand.  It is required reading of district administrators in our district.  (Side note: I love how it combines leadership principles with working towards changing content.)  Chapter 2 is called "Making the Case for Change".  To sum it up, it basically says that we are going to have to have our ducks in a row to change some of the teachers' minds about fully switching our mindsets to execute the CCSS.

As I was reading, I began to think about a few things which I wanted to share with you.  We all know that we teach how we were taught.  And we all know that we were not taught to be problem solvers like we are asking our teachers to teach now.  We also know that many educators are very uncomfortable about this change, yet are unwilling to work towards solving the problems that are needed to make this change work.  Hmmmm....here lies my conundrum.

We are going to ask "non-problem solving" educators to teach in a way that facilitates problem solving among their students.  Now I'm scared.


Second...

Say we do convince the masses of educators to take a problem solving approach to teaching, will anything really change in the long run?  Do I struggle so bad with finding people willing to not only pose problems, but solve problems because that have been given answers for so many years, or because much of the population of educators just don't want to take the effort to solve problems?  Is it that many people don't know how to solve a problem...or do they just not want to solve the problem?  If we teach our children to become problem posers and solvers, will they carry that skill with them into the work place?  Do all current and future jobs really need problem solvers?


Finally...

I want to see a study done that determines whether some people are just bad problem solvers.  Am I just a natural problem solver or have I just honed my skills?  Is problem solving nature or nurture?


I know these are random thoughts, but isn't that what blogging is for?