3 Ways My Mindset Toward Teaching Has Changed
This semester I have had the privilege of planning and teaching the first calculus class ever run at my school. Calculus is the study of how things change. Fittingly, it is in these past few months that I have found myself reflecting on just how much my mindsets have changed over the course of my first decade as a teacher. Here are three examples.
Changing Mindset #1 —On Teaching Other Subjects
Growing up, I was dead set on teaching math and pretty much proselytizing it. But the math teaching door did not open too wide for me during the first five years of my career. During that time, my main role was as a physics teacher. At first, I was scared—while I took some physics courses in university, I still did not have the expertise in either subject knowledge or pedagogy in the same way that I did with math. However, through experience and countless hours of self-learning physics, I became quite comfortable teaching it. It became really fun and I perhaps even preferred teaching physics over math at one point.
While I now teach math full-time and love it, that physics-teaching experience of being scared but working it into a strength turned out to be a very important one. It not only gave me confidence, but helped me be able to relate with colleagues with similar reservations about teaching math.
Changing Mindset #2 — On How People Learn Math
One aspect about mathematics that appeals to me is that it is so logical. During my undergraduate math program, we did proofs — lots and lots of “bulletproof” proofs. I found it quite enjoyable, and while this training is effective for future mathematicians, it may have caused a hiccup in my early high school teaching practice.
In my first few years, I spent a huge amount of time planning out every single sentence and word I would use when introducing a new concept. My brain was trained to give “bulletproof” explanations, and I believed that such detailed and logical explanations would be all any student needed in order to learn something. That mindset seems silly to me now, and I’m even a little embarrassed that I used to think like that. Most people don’t learn math the same way that I do. Before even thinking about presenting the fine details involved in a “bulletproof” explanation of a math or physics concept, students need to be shown the big picture, concrete examples, motivational examples, and drawings or diagrams (dynamic ones if possible) that show what is going on.
Changing Mindset #3 — On Academics And Relationships
When I began teaching, I focussed most of my energy on the academic side of the job: crafting productive lessons, designing meaningful assessments, and promoting effective study habits with the grand goal of giving my students the tools they need to succeed academically. I strove to be the best “preparer-of-students-for-university” in the world.
In the past couple of years, on the other hand, I have focussed much of my time toward strengthening relationships with students. Sometimes this means “giving up” some of our precious instructional time to have a chat. Sometimes it’s cutting my personal lunch or prep short to shoot some hoops with the kids or play boardgames. It’s a lot of walking through the halls and up-and-down the 5 flights of stairs in our building just to say hello to people.
I currently work at a school with about 230 students. It is very close-knit. I know every single student in the high school section. It is here where I learned firsthand how special and deeply rewarding it can be to build such connections. One of the goals of our school, drawn from ERASE Bullying training, is for every student to feel closely connected to at least one adult in the building.
Next year, I am moving to a school with over 1600 students. My top long-term goal that I am setting for myself is not to do with academics (as it would have been if I were my younger self), but it is to do with relationships: My goal is to know all 1600 students’ names and something about them within 4 years.
