Comments on: The Unengageables, Ctd.

By: dy/dan » Blog Archive » Reformers On Motivation

dy/dan » Blog Archive » Reformers On Motivation — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 15:46:26 +0000

[…] there is little or no interaction between motivation and learning, or that motivation is somehow outside the teacher’s job description. The assumption that motivation is entirely the student’s job leaves us no way to check […]

By: Leif Segen (@mr_segen)

Leif Segen (@mr_segen) — Sat, 19 Oct 2013 17:01:25 +0000

I wonder why “me”, “my preparation”, or at least “limits on my time” aren’t on the list of limitations.

By: Rene Grothmann

Rene Grothmann — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 07:37:09 +0000

Maybe it’s easier to influence the number of fire breakouts than the interest in math. You can enforce security measures, but not love to sciences.

By: Danira

Danira — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 15:49:08 +0000

The greatest limitation has nothing to do with the kids. It has to do with the environment in which teachers and students work. An environment in which there is a bell and a quarter or semester and content a teacher feels they must cover. Our job is working with students as they come. They are a function of what the system has created and I must make that experience better. As Dr. Jo Boaler has explained in her course “How to Learn Math”, a teacher’s job is to disrupt the trajectory of students who have not had a successful experience.

By: Jameson Michelle

Jameson Michelle — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 16:33:30 +0000

Like many of my students taking a multiple choice test I re-read the question numerous times, I read your comments, then I went and read the question again. The word that stands out to me is LIMITS. I am with Dan but from a different stand point. My noisy kids, distracted kids, uninterested kids, and students with a diverse academic background force me to create numerous ways to teach them content. This is far from limiting. We live in the world of internet, resources are abundant, and while I have limited parental involvement, I have had to become more creative in how I assign practice work, again not limiting in any way.

What does limit me is budget, time, and sometimes energy!

By: Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 04:00:43 +0000

If it helps anybody see where I'm coming from, had the question been posed as "what's hard about your job?" and the response posed as "getting kids interested in math," I'd be totally unperturbed. That is hard. But it is within a teacher's locus of control. By contrast, "compulsory schooling" or "compulsory standards" or "lack of teaching resources" are largely outside a teacher's control and fair game for griping, as far as I'm concerned. Lots of you take exception to the hamfisted phrasing of the question and the fact that it's multiple choice and the fact that the multiple choice options are kind of hamfistedly selected. I'm with you there. I'm frustrated that NCTM has outsourced its daily math newsletter to a team with only a passing familiarity with math education (this SmartBrief outfit). I unsubscribed after it became clear that team was just transcribing whatever press releases or Google Alerts dropped into their email box the day before. But they're also endorsing pedagogical techniques uncritically (like the flipped classroom) and now constructing bizarre surveys (like this) all under the NCTM imprint. That's rough.

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 00:01:09 +0000

It seems that each of the factors listed are part of doing the job, not just the top two.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 20:48:24 +0000

I’m with Michael. I was trying to decide if I was forced to vote, which choice I would choose.

I decided… I don’t like the choices. Or maybe it’s the question I don’t like. I do, however, like Michael’s question.

By: Jamie Roberts

Jamie Roberts — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 13:10:26 +0000

Actually, firefighters do have influence over the number of fires they fight. Their community information and preventative programs have surely reduced the number of fires they see. Well, at least I would hope so… Hmmm, I smell a math problem smoldering!

By: Patrick Honner

Patrick Honner — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 12:59:59 +0000

The argument here seems to be that since the reality of being a math teacher necessitates figuring out how to deal with uninterested and disruptive students, it’s wrong for teachers to see those things as an impediment to, rather than a requirement of, the job.

But that argument applies to all the items on the list. Which suggests to me that the problem is with how the question is phrased and interpreted.