in test magister est semper tacere

"During the test, the teacher is always silent"
 

Once again I find myself at the start of another year as a junior high school Maths and Science teacher. This will be  my sixth year of teaching.. yay me!

When I was at Uni, a lecturer quoted some stats that new teachers often drop out of the profession within five years. So far, so good. Now I'm looking forward to reaching long service leave in a couple of years, REALLY looking forward to it! The way time flies, it will be here before I know it.

Being a high school student these days is considerably different to when I was one, twenty years ago. I'm sure my teachers felt the same way about my generation too. I wonder what they would think of this generation if they were still teaching.

I will admit this is purely personal opinion, but I feel that quite a lot of students need a lot more hand holding than my peers and I ever did. Have we, the current generation of parents, raised a generation of children who need to be told what to do every step of the way?

The most frustrating thing for me as a teacher is when I show them how to do something, hold their hand for a bit, they look like they have it, and then they drop their bundle when it comes to an exam. They like the security blanket of having someone tell them what to do...

So often I have heard "I don't know what to do.." when they come across a wordy problem. I ask them to read it and tell me what it says. Then I ask,  "What do you think you need to do?" So often their response is on the right track, but they wouldn't even have a go independently :-(

Being successful at exams could be described as an art form. I attended a professional development event just a few days ago. It was eye opening on several levels. Let me elaborate.

1. The literacy of numeracy...  numeracy is a special language all of its own. We need to teach students how to decode it properly. Explicit instruction.
2. There are teachers out there who can't work out (in their heads) the answer to "what is  3/4 of $600?" and openly say they suck at Maths.. they will most transfer likely transfer their fear of Maths onto several students.

To be honest, I was never a Maths whiz, I used to be afraid of it sometimes, because I didn't understand it. All it took was a good teacher to show me that it wasn't so scary and encourage me to persevere. I started to get a buzz when I could work out a question and get it right.

I actually got to do extension Maths in year ten and also passed it. I went on to do Mathematics B in senior and passed it too! . Now, I have been teaching middle school Maths for almost 6 years.

It's true what they say, the more you practice, the better you get. ROTE learning definitely needs to make a solid comeback, just to boost  confidence.

The teenage body goes through the second phase of rapid growth and development they have experienced since their first few years of life. Apparently, in the adolescent phase, the brain is "pruned" by 50%! Hormones are released and cause the brain to act like it's in a state of flux, not able to focus.

More reflections on teenage biochemistry and it's impact on learning later.

TGBTG

MD