True Learners (5/1/08)

It was a welcomed break from the norm. Only 30 % of our kids were in the school building. A large group had chosen to attend the protest downtown for immigration and another big chunk of kids were at the JROTC district wide reception. Sarah (our English Teacher) and I decided to join our classes rather than teach little groups of 8 or 9 students. So there I was on a bizarrely snowy day in May with a combined class of 17 in which very few students were interested in learning. "I'm not feeling it today Mr. Singer...no one else is here...why should I have to learn...come on, we work here everyday." These were the comments I was hearing from many as I tried to encourage some positive work time. Not to discredit the whole class as there were a chunk of kids engaged in learning. Ron comes to mind as he worked on finding an equation to represent a parabola he was dealing with. Josh was his usual self, taking care of business the way he knows how. Ask questions, get support, move forward. He loves getting it done. Beyond these pockets of students who chose the right path to follow there were two who I must discuss in more detail, Iaisha and Sir.

Teaching Iaisha and Sir reminds me of my own learning experience in college when I would sit in my Discrete Mathematics Professor's office and get help with creating complex proofs. I would sit there asking questions and getting support while Dr. McGivney would hand me different materials to look at that might clue me in on some new information or show me an example of how what I was dealing with might look in a different context. He never gave me answers, but always helped guide me to what I needed to find my own solutions. The same is true for the experiences that I occasionally get the opportunity to bask in with Iaisha and Sir. Two extremely bright students with a passion for new knowledge, Sir and Iaisha bring the same attitude about learning to the table that I did as a college sophomore.

Working as a team (the 3 of us) we were trying to find a way to solve for the exponent in an exponential equation. How do you get the power down from there? was really the question. If you have an equation that represents investing money like y = 12,550(1.13)^t where y is your output, $ in the account, and t is your time than how could you solve the equation for t when given a specific amount of money. For example, if asked when your investment would reach $25,000.00 then how could you solve the equation 25,000 = 12,550(1.13)^t? As we discussed this mathematical dilemma I mentioned to my two math whizes that there is a thing called a logarithm that might help us do just that. Opening a college text book we began to explore what these logarithms were all about and how they might help us crack the case wide open like a young Angela Lansbery. As we went through examples and discussed what all of this new terminology meant we soon realized that nothing we were looking at was getting us too close to our needed support. "Why don't we move a few sections ahead in the text," remarked Sir. "These are just simple examples...I'll bet they'll show us how to use it with equations later in the book." Sure enough Sir was right on the money. A few sections later we found exactly what we needed to answer our initial question.

Over a near 1 hour period of time the three of us were engaged in learning and doing mathematics as colleagues. I simply kept suggesting, questioning and supporting, but never giving solutions. It's amazing how much we can underestimate the talents, intelligence and interest level of our students if we don't allow for these types of opportunities. Think about it. How many 9th graders would be interested in reading through a college math text to discover how logarithms might support them in solving exponential equations for the power variable? How many for that matter have the ability to accomplish this task with minimal guidance from their teacher? I was so proud of Sir and Iaisha as they came to their solution and discovered an entirely new area of mathematics that they may not have even known existed prior to today. Awesome stuff...just awesome!