Sunday, February 7, 2016

The Setting

Board, Chalk, Black, Education, Learn, Smeared, Dirty


Altmann, Gerd, Board Chalk Black Education, 7/16/2015, via Pixabay Public Domain Distribution License

Welcome to the classroom. This isn't any particular classroom for a high-end university or a Title 1 elementary school; this is a classroom in which any class of students, no matter what grade, can be taught math. Whiteboards surround the walls, encompassing the twenty to thirty some desks that are occupied by students, laser focused on the lesson currently taking place. The whiteboards are filled with specific equations hastily written by a teacher. 2-d figures, algebra, basic terms litter the boards with rote meanings; all of these terms can also be found scribbled onto the students' notebooks. The faint aroma of expo markers fills the room, slowly dispersing its delicate, yet characteristic fumes through the entirety of the room. This aroma finds a conflict in the distinct sharp balm of pencil lead. In the corner of the room lies a computer cart filled with factory new laptops; their distinct monotone humming clashing with the faint scratching between pencil and paper. As we zoom outside of this classroom, we seen a school building, filled with seeming endless, identical classrooms. The whiteboards contain different words and pictures, but the atmospheres and students remain focused and vigilant. This is what the general consensus of the government and the people have decided to be the most effective way of teaching: uniform and linear. This classroom is not under any pressure of being changed, but the content written on the numerous whiteboards may, in fact, be showing a different way of expressing math by the end of the Math Wars. If this occurs, there might be the slightest chance that instead of being laser-focused, the students will under conceptual mathematics; there will be no more grinding in memorizing and writing down the specific conditions that characterize mathematics as its taught today.

No comments:

Post a Comment