Response to video

What implications does this have for me as a teacher?

This video has many points that are very important to consider when I become a teacher. One is that 'education runs deep', this is true and will affect how I will teach. Sometimes we forget how much we, as teachers, will impact our students lives. Fifty years down the road most of us will still remember how we felt in a specific classroom and how a teacher made us feel, whether it be embrassment because we could not rhyme off the multiplication table or empowerment for being able to complete a difficult math problem. Early experiences will effect us for the rest of our lives. Another point in the video is that children are not afraid to take chances and be wrong, it's only until we are taught to fear it because of humiliation or embrassment. This has implications for teaching math because its not important if we just have the final answer right or wrong. The important part is the understanding and knowing of the process that gets you there. One thing I will not do when I teach math is to give tests and mark the question wrong if the rest of the answer or the process to the final answer is right. Children need to be encouraged to take risks and even if the final result is incorrect, the important part is that we have learned something valuable during the process. Another point from the video that has implications to my teaching is that schools were created to meet the needs of industrialism. From the beginning math and literacy are at the top and the humanities and art are at the bottom. The world is changing and university degrees are becoming less valued ('academic inflation'), therefore why should we give children the impression that math and literacy are the most important when in reality, in the future and even now we will need creativity to sustain a tomorrow for us all? I believe that math can be creative, why not take risks and think outside the 'book'? It is only when you take a risk and be creative that you may learn something new. The last point for the video that is important is the idea of many intelligences. This has major implications for math because there are too many times that instructors teach directly from a book (which as you go up in grade tend to loose more color and pictures), many children may need manipulatives to help solve math problems, some may need to draw pictures or sing a song to understand math, just because these children cannot sit quietly at a desk doesn't mean they are less competent for learning math. We should all realize learning occurs many different ways but who is to say one way is superior than the other.