Day Ten - Thursday Kate's Post on Belinda and Middle School Math

Belinda is the JHS1-3 (equivalent to Parker’s 7-9^th grades) math & sciences teacher. She has been at Tuskegee for a year following four years at University studying nutrition. From the first day, Charles was clear that he wanted me to work with Belinda in particular and I spent the first two days observing her JHS1 and 2 classes. (Note: JHS3 is done with school until graduation next week; they finished their tests and “passed” Form (JHS)3 and don’t have to attend classes now

What I observed in the first couple of days was that the instruction was pretty much focused around teaching a particular method or process to solve a math question. This morning I found myself struggling to keep up with some of the procedures the students were using in part because I don’t have much experience (i.e. none!) in middle school math and in part because I really couldn’t figure out why they were using these complicated procedures for what looked like some fairly basic work - this is really because I am only just becoming familiar with the math curriculum here and it tends to lean towards instruction of procedures. In short, I was foundering here.

Later, Belinda asked me to start with teaching applications for bearings, as I mentioned earlier, and I’m thinking….Huh…how in the world do I do that? I’m not sure I get how their text laid it out in the first place. Not to mention….these bearings are great if you’re navigating at sea but I couldn’t see anything other than a treasure map as a means of teaching it in a hands-on way, and treasure maps aren’t exactly practical. I’ll get back to the bearings lessons another day…

So, I’m puzzling through all this thinking that what I’d really like to do is model some problem solving strategies and instruction with the students. I start each class I teach with Belinda by posing a word problem taken from math cards from my classroom. You can ask Josh Marks about these cards; he’s the aficionado. Letting the kids puzzle through this was a challenge for Belinda and in some ways torturous for the kids. The classroom model they know is precise: learn a method, recite the steps, apply the method to a set of problems, move on. But this is just one part of math instruction and learning. Belinda and I talked after each class and three days ago we had a lengthy discussion about the school system here and in the US. Ghana’s educational policy is actually quite similar to the US public school system with a heavy emphasis on test scores for student, teacher and school assessment. She talked eloquently about the trickle-down effect of test-score mandates and the impact it has on teachers and students.

We generated a list of five common elements for a good mathematics programs: methods/skills, practice/review, problem-solving strategies/critical thinking challenges, assessment, teacher passion. Of course there are others and emphasis on each area changes throughout the course of the year, but you get the idea of where we were headed – we (students, teachers, administrators, parents) are saddled with a school system the values one piece only.

Three days ago Belinda came to me with a problem her students had been struggling with:

Ama has $24 more in savings than Abena.

1/3 of Abena’s savings is equal to half of Ama’s.

How much do they have in savings all together?

We tackled it using the model method from Singapore Math and tried to solve it a few different ways. No matter what, we couldn’t make it work and I said, “Well, we proved it isn’t possible. If Ama has more than Abena, how can 1/3 of her savings be equal to half of Ama’s?” We switched the values and easily solved it using the model method. Belinda looked at me and said, “This is what I want you to teach us, how to teach like this.” So that’s what we’re doing now. After presenting a similar problem to JHS1 that required converting fractions and finding equivalencies to find an unknown quantity, we met again and talked about strategies. We determined that since this process for problem solving was new to them we should use math skills that are mastered rather than trying to teach two new things at one time.

Belinda took the Level 4 Singapore math problems book home to practice and prep for class. I wasn’t able to go to JHS1 yesterday but afterwards she came up to me with the biggest smile on her face; she was so excited by how it went with the class. Belinda is a pretty reserved woman so to see her beaming….that feeling is a universal teacher feeling – the sheer pleasure of a truly successful lesson. She was charged up! Later that day I saw her working on something very intently in the teacher office space (yes, they have a common work space!) and she showed it to me at the end of the day. It’s the work below. She was testing the model method with some “real world” numbers to see if it would work. She was introduced to it a day earlier and look at this!

It’s a pleasure working with Belinda; she really wants to challenge her kids and herself. She knows what she wants in the classroom and I am excited for what this work means for the school. Belinda will have these teachers trained in teaching critical thinking and problem solving approaches in no time. Of course, there is the whole issue of constant teacher changes. But that’s for another day.

One more thing on Belinda…..her long term goal is to take her Nutrition degree and her teaching experience with children and combine them to work in a health clinic with a focus on child health.

**An interesting fact about University here – there are no student loans. In order to go to school you have to pay cash. Many students graduate upper school and then work for 4 years to make enough money to pay for University. Because there is no government funding or support, access to a university education is restricted to the wealthy or the well motivated. Not an unfamiliar issue.

Today is Republic Day so we are off to the market.