This is Hard Work … Why It is Important!

The AMATYC 2014 conference is almost over. Many conversations and sessions have dealt with changing the curriculum in basic ways, whether shifting to a New Life model or Dana Center or Carnegie … in part, whole, or modified. Some of us get so enthusiastic about this change that we don’t get slowed down by worries or concerns about the amount of hard work this will take; for us, it’s like nothing will stop us from reaching our goal.

Most of us, however, are facing constraints. We are intimidated by the work involved — the hard work of developing an idea, getting consensus or approval in the department, and building institutional support, all of which is required before we get to develop the teaching in the new courses. Perhaps, we think, it would be best to take a small step like replacing one chapter in the current course with a new one, and see how the ideas work out at other institutions.

Take the biggest step you think you can. In fact, take a step a little bigger than you think is realistic.

I could justify these statements by citing policy initiatives that are coming, by showing data on how ‘bad’ things are now, or by invoking the Common Core mythology. Today, I want to take a different approach to the rationale for why it is important to make changes a little bigger than you think is realistic.

Call it personal, or perhaps religious. My world view, informed by my beliefs, goes something like this:

Do no harm to others
Place the needs of others ahead of (some) of your own needs

For a large portion of students placing below calculus, we are doing harm to them. They come to us with dreams and aspirations, and we place steps in front of them that are frequently and artificially difficult. Yes, we bear some responsibility for students giving up on their dreams. We have been doing significant harm, even though our work is driven by a desire to help. We must stop doing harm to such a degree.

We should be placing the needs of students above our own needs. We will have jobs, though different, even if we eliminate half of our developmental courses; sure, it’s not comfortable … it can even be threatening. However, continuing what we have been doing is not putting students’ needs first. Does any student need the 100 learning outcomes of my college’s developmental mathematics courses? Absolutely not. Those 100 outcomes are there because we there might be a need sometime for somebody to use them in some situation; much of this ‘need’ is driven by assessments within mathematics courses.

Herb Gross, founding president of AMATYC, gave a popular keynote speech here at the conference. At one point, Herb said that we should re-phrase the golden rule; instead of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” it should be “Do unto others as they would do unto themselves.” I appreciate the intent with this re-phrasing, but it totally misses the faith justification for the original … we are called to see ourselves as the other person; the ‘do unto you’ refers to what they could do to you or for you if your roles were reversed.

So, envision yourself starting at college, and your initial mathematics course is not very ‘advanced’. Perhaps you are the person who had AP Calculus in high school who is told that you now must take two courses before taking college calculus. Perhaps you are the person who passed two algebra courses with weak grades who now finds herself sitting in a class reviewing grade school arithmetic with 25 other students of color. Perhaps you are the person who did not do well before, and really needs help building a mathematical base … and you find yourself in a math course which deals strictly with procedures, with some drive-by attention to concepts, and no real applications in sight.

The issues I am talking about are definitely not just in ‘developmental’ or remedial courses. At all levels, we tend to have a mismatch between student needs and what we provide. The harm is done in pre-algebra and pre-calculus, in algebra and calculus, and even in statistics.

I have never met a math teacher at any level who wanted to do harm to students. Almost all of us have a sincere desire to help students, to provide the best mathematics possible. Change can involve a risk to do harm; the profession has enough knowledge about mathematical needs and learning to avoid much of the risk.

Do no harm, as much as possible. We must take the biggest step possible … and a little more … to reduce the harm we do. We should take advantage of the external forces, and create the types of change we think are best — to put our students’ needs first.

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Professional Motivation | Jack Rotman | November 16, 2014 11:38 am

2 Comments

By Herb Gross, November 18, 2014 @ 10:25 pm

It is not always easy for me at age 85 to multitask but I tried to read what you wrote while at the same time I tried to recall what I had said in my keynote address. To the best of my ability your statement that we should place the needs of our students above those of some of our own seems to me to be equivalent to my statement of “Do unto others as others would have done unto themselves”. However, we have to be careful here. For example, if a person is in mourning it is egocentric to say “I know how you feel”. The best we can say is something along the lines of “I don’t know how you feel but I think I know what I would feel in this situation”.

At MIT it sort of made sense for me to say “What was I like at his age?” because when I was his age I was also MIT material. However it is irrelevant for me to ask in a developmental math class “What was I like when I was his age?” because I was not like him (at leasr, academically) when I was his age. So the best thing I can do is to be as student-oriented as possible; and that ability varies from person to person.

I have been a math educator for almost 60 years, and 50 of those years were spent working in developmental math. Mainly through painful trial-and-error, I developed an approach to developmental math that has served me and my students well. Even my weakest students appreciate learning the “why”. In many cases, knowing the “why” enhances an understanding of the “how”. And for that reason I have posted all of my work (videos, power point presentations, textbooks and other written notes) on my website (www.mathasasecondlanguage.com) for anyone to use free of charge. It is just another tool for you to use in your attempt to accomplish your own goals.

In closing I would be remiss if I did not thank everyone who attended my keynote address for the wonderful and warm reception I received at the conclusion of my talk. And I am humbled by the honor AMATYC has bestowed upon me by naming an important award after me. Receiving the “AMAYC Herb Gross Lifetime Achievement Award” is something I do not take lightly.

I apologize for the above “rambling”. Perhaps at my age I am better off shutting down the computer and going to bed shortly after it gets dark.
By Jack Rotman, November 19, 2014 @ 12:01 pm

Perhaps you will be disappointed … I did not see anything ‘rambling’ in your remarks. My colleagues were uniformly impressed by your talk, as well as the quality of your character.
Your highlighting the ‘why’ is important to me. We live in an era where ‘context’ and ‘application’ have become trends and solutions; I love those methods because it’s more fun in class. However — Many students are searching for the why behind mathematics; it’s a hunger for some, for others it becomes the primary path for learning anything. We avoid ‘why’ at great peril to our students and our profession.
Herb, you may know this already, but here it is: we appreciate you so much because we can see that the culture of AMATYC is based a great deal on the quality of your character; that showed in 1974, it showed in 1987 when I started, and it shows in 2014. That is an incredible legacy, and amply justifies the naming of an award after you.
Thanks for taking the time to post; I can only hope that I can contribute a non-trivial fraction of what you are contributing ‘at your age’. As far as I am concerned, leave that computer on … ramble whenever you’d like!
~Jack Rotman

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