Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm actually thinking of getting a HS teachers qualification at present.

I don't really know how I'd describe what you're talking about, but there are several points in the curriculum where a good treatment is critical, but where the curriculum fails because its all broken up into neat boxes. Like the relationships between compound interest and exponentiation. Its the connections that make maths cool, but the curriculum seems to want to Balkanise rather than synthesize.

Awesome grey wanderer. I think especially what your ideas are for younger kids make calculus easier to understand. You could even use that for older people who are just lost with the concepts. I'll try to remember that.

Good for you rabbit. We always need more good HS teachers. If I wasn't going into science, I probably could enjoy myself as a HS math/science teacher.

I think it's fantastic how many people on this forum are either prepared (or willing to consider) teaching high school math. Good on you all!

I've not taught any classes specifically for high school teachers but I did teach one term of 'Math for elementary school teachers'. By and large they were good people (and sincerely devoted to being good teachers), but they were also the singlemost math-phobic bunch I've ever taught. I found that more than a little bit frightening. It's reassuring to see people who actually like the topic consider teaching.



I don't think having been certified to teach math and/or physics is ever going to hurt you. I suspect it would be a great boon in the peace corps, and might even improve your chances of getting into the grad school of your choice. Good luck!

I kind of thought about getting into teaching, but I have this feeling I would be one of those "too smart" professors. I've had a few that are that way, and I don't want to put students through the same things my peers went through (I actually love having those professors. Move fast and get to the meat of things. Define the terms and go kind of classes.)

I do tutor people in the basics (mainly logic, algebra, and set theory) at the college I am currently at, but I have a problem explaining something on their level sometimes. I just assume they are familiar with certain terms. I am getting better about watching use of jargon, but I still forget a lot and I still struggle to put it in simpler terms. >.< I also get thrown when I have to explain really simple things like why when 3-x=-2, x=5.

I am actually tutoring a Hispanic student one-on-one right now to sort of play with the idea of teaching adults... Unfortunately, I don't know many math terms in Spanish, so it is slow going till I get comfortable with the terms. But he knows enough English so that when I get in a bind I can explain it in a manner he can understand (yay for drawing pictures!). The communication gap makes the work a bit difficult. I am trying to learn more Spanish and he is trying to learn more English. It is sort of an interesting experience.

I like working with older students much more than younger people. They often have a harder time picking up math, but it is really rewarding to hear that after many years of trying, they finally get it. They also tend to be more diligent. The only problem I have with the older students is they tend to freak out more when they don't understand. I don't know what to do with them. It is only harder for them to understand if they are freaked out, but I can't convince them to calm down. It kind of gets frustrating.

Ah Swordmaster... I feel your pain, but in my experience it's not just the older students... pretty much ANY age range is susceptible to that same sort of math phobia-- that panic that overwhelms rational thought when the question isn't the mathematical equivalent of "fill-in-the-blank". But consistent with your experiences I find that the older students are more apt to compensate for their confusion by turning the interaction into a dominance game and this often manifests as anger. I've yet to find a sure-fire way to break (or redirect) that reflex. Another fashion in which I've seen this manifest is the "I'm just no good at math" approach. It frees them from the need to take any sort of responsibility for their actions and shunts the blame for any sort of failure to an impersonal (and amorphous) 'aptitude'.

I don't wish to sound callow, or as if I think it's hopeless, or as if most students are somehow *morally* at fault.... but it is frustrating... good luck.

That sounds, rewarding... good on you! But I think there's a categorical difference-- it sounds as if these people come to you with their problems. That's a completely different power dynamic then a classroom situation, and the expectations are very different. But regardless. Cool.

Maybe that's why I don't see it in younger students as much. In older students it manifests as anger, whereas in younger students it becomes a drop in self-esteem. I understand what you mean about the dominance thing, too. I've had some older students turn on me with phrases like, "I'm not going to sit here and listen to some kid."

As for the "I'm just no good at math" approach; it tends to help if I just talk them down from it and show them the road that they've traveled to make it to where they are. This seems to work especially well with calculus students, where they do have quite a bit of mathematical experience behind them. It makes them feel better to give them questions that they can now do on their own, but recognize were once-upon-a-time "hard".

Being "morally at fault" may sound callous, but it's...accurate in older students. Younger students, who are still developing and need the emotional support, I can forgive. But when anyone over the age of 20 adopts that attitude...well, it is hopeless. Adults simply lose their malleability.

On an interesting note, I'm going over developmental theories in educational psychology. One is Piaget's approach of four stages, the final two being "concrete operational stage" and "formal operational stage." What separates them is a lack of ability to systematize and abstract information. In the former, they can solve problems where they can work with their hands; give them a handful of pennies, and they can work out what 3+8 is. But it isn't until the latter stage that they can abstract the concept of "number" to do math problems (of course, this is not limited to mathematics).

Similarly, when faced with finding a specific relationship between two things, the former approaches it chaotically; the latter, systematically. One case study had students from both stages attempt to figure out how the period of a pendulum responds to changes in the length of the string, the impetus given when pushed, and the height that the weight is dropped from. The formal operational student will go systematically, and vary one factor at a time. The concrete operational will obscure the problem by varying several factors at once.

I tell you that story to tell you this one: Most adults (formal operational), when faced with tasks they are not familiar with, will revert to concrete operational tactics to solve them. Example 1: An adult just learning how to sail will most often try to adjust several things at once before recognizing that the tiller adjusts direction, sail adjusts speed, etc. Example 2: Most college students, when faced with problems outside their major, revert to tactics in concrete operational thought. In particular, they lack the ability to make abstractions in fields that they don't participate in daily. I imagine something similar is true for all adults.

The problem, then, is that adults who do not use some form of mathematics daily will revert to the concrete operational stage - mode of thought used by 7-11 year-olds - in attempting to solve those problems. Ain't that a kick in the teeth?