Most recent public comments by Paul AllisonNDSS https://nowcomment.com/users/9282 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=490595 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=490595 I wonder what your mother was thinking when she named you Ezekiel! Tue, 08 Mar 2016 02:20:31 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=490594 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=490594 I guess if it is something that you have learned, then you are saying that it is better for you this way: being selfish? Why is it better that way? What made you feel this way? Tue, 08 Mar 2016 02:19:47 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=490571 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=490571 Are you like that too? Have you ever been? Even if it isn't about school, is there anything that you show little patience about? Tue, 08 Mar 2016 01:52:20 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=490564 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=490564 Did you/Could you stop to help? There might be homeless students at NDSS. Have you noticed? What difference would it make if you met someone homeless in you classes? Tue, 08 Mar 2016 01:45:42 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=480462 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=480462 What does it mean to you that Dasani's room in a shelter is decrepit? What does it say about NYC that such a place is run by the city? Sat, 27 Feb 2016 00:52:11 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=480460 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=480460 Seems like you would have a lot of responsibility for the younger children and a lot of older siblings to take care of you -- or order you around? I wonder how you are relating this to Dasani. Tue, 08 Mar 2016 03:56:27 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=480458 https://nowcomment.com/documents/34630?scroll_to=480458 I wonder what you feel about this "life style" -- and it's a bit surprising to see you call this a lifestyle because it isn't something someone chooses, is it? Sat, 27 Feb 2016 00:45:39 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/35744?scroll_to=347750 https://nowcomment.com/documents/35744?scroll_to=347750 This isn't a complete answer, but your question did remind me of how on page 7 Beane writes: "The isolation and fragmentation of knowledge is part of the deep structures of schooling. This is evident in the subject-specific curriculum documents, schedules, and other artifacts of middle and high schools and in the separate subject/skill schedule in so many elementary school classrooms." Wed, 05 Aug 2015 22:04:27 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/35744?scroll_to=347749 https://nowcomment.com/documents/35744?scroll_to=347749 I wonder if it was or if we just gave up on it. That's one of the ideas expressed at the beginning of this amazing story on This American Life: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/562/the-problem-we-all-live-with Wed, 05 Aug 2015 21:45:16 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245998 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245998 Too often traditional math and new math are compared with one emphasizing algorithms and rules and memorization while the other is based on inquiry and real-world problems. When in fact, we should be asking, "In which approach do students really learn and retain what they learn?" It's obviously the problem-based approach. Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245996 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245996 I wonder if we can model this in a social network as well, so that this sharing process can be asynchronous. Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245995 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245995 Bringing the world into school and school into the world. THAT'S when education begins. Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245994 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245994 It's pretty easy to get math teachers to talk about what students forget before the test. How can we get them to understand this as a problem in the curriculum and approach, not in the students' lack of abilities or background knowledge? How can we get math teachers to turn and say, since they are forgetting those algorithms and tricks, maybe I should be teaching something else. Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245990 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245990 This leads to an orderly, easily observed classroom, wo why wouldn't a teacher feel the pressure to teach this way, given the pressures of teacher evaluation? Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245989 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245989 So how hard should we work to help youths show the school-equivalent of a skill they already possess outside of school. If tests and such keep these students from learning at the next level, then we can't just blow off this question. I guess we need to get young people to apply what they would do in the real-world problem situation to a school problem. Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245988 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245988 But to what extent are these cherry-picked examples? Might we not find as many examples like the way Major League Baseball uses statistics now or the way sports fans in general can use numbers effectively, or higher-levels of engineering and architecture that rely on sophisticated mathematics? At least one might say that we have the best and the worst in America, perhaps? Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245987 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245987 How do we get teachers to agree that the curriculum is broken? This is exactly what I was referring to above when I was suggesting that the problem is that many math teachers don't have the same philosophy of education that many of us do, that learning if for all and that all can and should be learning. That the purpose of education is to empower all students, not select the best for advancement. Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245986 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245986 I think it's important to say that in a room where there is a wide range of knowledge of math facts and algorithms, that teaching an inquiry that starts with a real-world problem (even if it is a simulation) is the BEST (maybe only) way to have students really practice and develop their "math facts" skills. This is why these skills need to be put into the context of actual practice and problem solving, not memorization (even if by a game). Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245984 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245984 I'm not against more time for working through the issues in CMP3 math, for example. I've been in too many workshops where the math teachers have been resistant and confused with a particular inquiry, only to get an "ah-ha", "So this concept is what they are teaching in this unit." There is a small thrill of re-discovery of the concept that has been built up through a real-world example and inquiry, trial-and-error, collaboration, discourse. The question is always, how do we get math teachers to allow students to have this same time exploring something like they just did in this workshop? And a bigger question is why do some teachers in a workshop immediately think, "Oh, I know how to teach that concept, and they don't have to mess around with all of those sticks and things." As if the content of math is what is being taught. Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245983 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245983 I'm suspect of this narrative. It doesn't account for different perspectives on the purpose of schooling or at least different perspectives on the purpose of learning mathematics. It has to go beyond training and experience, even beyond the math teacher's feelings of loss of authority as the "answer giver." But am I going too far here when I imply that too many math teachers accept the purpose of schooling to a sort and select process where the brightest rise to the top. That's at least the result of the math teaching I see in schools. A more democratic -- all must learn -- approach would be more open to the "new math" of discourse and inquiry. Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245979 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24292?scroll_to=245979 Still, the teacher I was co-teaching with felt like we weren't covering enough material fast enough. When I watched her teaching in ways that were more comfortable to her, she was the one talking 85% of the time. Students would guess at answers to her questions, and she would congratulate them when they got close, pointing out what the next steps in a procedure were. For this teacher, and so many others, covering topics or exposing young people to math concepts is what teaching math is all about. Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24179?scroll_to=245438 https://nowcomment.com/documents/24179?scroll_to=245438 What a set up! When we see charts that indicate that children run away from problems in their own families, you think of domestic violence or the stresses of poverty (whatever that means), but you don't think that a "family problem" is related to sex trafficking. How crazy is this? And only 13?! Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/23658?scroll_to=242536 https://nowcomment.com/documents/23658?scroll_to=242536 Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/23658?scroll_to=242501 https://nowcomment.com/documents/23658?scroll_to=242501 I wonder if anybody has done a study of middle school students who are scoring 1's and 2's and what the trajectory is for these young people. Do they have any chance of getting into a 4-year college? And is this a standard that is worth holding out for? What is the purpose of a middle school and a high school education if it isn't so that students are prepared for 4-year colleges in their own city? Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800 https://nowcomment.com/documents/21803?scroll_to=215278 https://nowcomment.com/documents/21803?scroll_to=215278 Heroine?! Really? It makes you almost not believe that tobacco is a problem because the comparison is so out there. How can they compare a cigarette user to a drug user? Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:46:09 +0800