Effective Teaching

Although I am teaching a pre-calculus class in the college, I know many of my students will never take another math class when they walk out the door after the final in December.   While it is important to me that they pass, it is more important that they learn to think and to analyze.  They need to see the relevance of math in real life, even if it only helps with problem solving skills.  It is also important for the ones who are math phobic to learn that math is nothing to be afraid of and can be mastered if they stop, break the problem apart and think it through.

I haven't reached them all, but I know I have been successful with many in the past.  If I can do it again, I know my term will be successful.  That is all I need to show me I am a highly effective teacher.

Sleepers Who Woke Up



These two kids slept their weight their way through high school, occasionally failing classes and then making them up the following term.  Luckily for them, no one said, "Poor baby.  Do these 75 problems online and you can make up the credit" or "Go to summer school for two weeks, just show up and the credit will be yours."  These kids were forced to take real classes and to do something that would probably be considered capital punishment today--they were forced to show competence in the subjects they failed.

I said these two kids were lucky and they were.  Both sleepers made it through high school and graduated with a diploma that meant something.  Both went on to college.  One is now a doctor, doing her residency at a major hospital in Queens.  The other is an aeronautical engineer, working for NASA.  Both of these kids are close to 30 years old, one of the last generation to get a real high school education.

We might have higher graduation rates today, but the late bloomers, like these kids, will not be so successful.  (Even kids who did the right thing will have a hard time do to the lack of education they received in high school.)  Pursuing a college education without the proper foundation will insure their failure, something I see every day.  How long will it take for the powers that be to realize this?  How many generations will be lost until things change?