After the midpoint break in the first block of classes, I join a grade 12 math class. They are looking at inequalities. The graphs look familiar, they bring back to me the smell of the dusty math classroom at Cooper High School, they make me think of my friend who never brought his math text to class. He borrowed one of the texts in the room instead, and for some inexplicable reason kept it after class to store it in the bottom of my locker. Every now and then we cleared the locker of math texts. His record was 12.
To get the students restarted after break, the teacher projects a problem on the board, gives a brief explanation, and lets the students know they have five minutes to work it out. They are looking to find the equation of the quadratic in the form y = ax2 + bx + c. A hint of recognition flickers in the back of my mind.
The students work mostly alone, on paper or tablets. After a few minutes the teacher moves to one student to help him out. “You’ve made it a bit too complicated,” he says matter of factly, as he helps the student get back on track. Other students check in with each other. The tables are arranged in a rectangle and we are sitting on the outside perimeter. The student in the middle of a group of three confers with his colleagues to the right and left. He has the luckiest position for getting help, or for helping others, it occurs to me. The teacher takes a look at his work, saying that it is the same answer he has come up with, the student goes back to conferring with his friends.
The teacher writes out his solution on the board as the students finish their own. This helps me remember a bit more, it must help the students, too. The teacher gives a couple of hints, gives the students a bit more time, lets them know they’ll be looking at a second problem in a minute. As the students finish their work I take a look around the room.
Rectangular, exposed concrete, big windows that go all the way to the floor, it is wonderfully sunny outside and nicely cool inside. One entire wall is white board, from floor to at least a meter over the teacher’s head. I believe this wall folds together to combine with the classroom next door. If I remember correctly, a third room has a similar configuration so that all three rooms can be combined. That’s flexible. And from other math teachers I’ve worked with, I bet the teacher appreciates all that white board writing space. I wonder if the students solve problems at the wall, too?
The teacher works out the second problem, speaking aloud as he writes each step on the board. Students ask questions without raising their hands, there are only seven of them and they are obviously used to this approach of discussing problems, taking turns politely, seemingly willing to ask questions when they don’t understand.
Apparently the teacher has been prepping the students for a bigger assignment, a handout labeled “classwork” with six graphs. He leads a discussion about the first curve. I love his constant smile, how he leans toward a student when asked a question. Now, in fact, he just stepped over to the student so that they are looking at the problems, projected on the white wall, together. This isn’t a know-it-all teacher, even if he does know it all. This is a colleague who shares an interest in math and is willing to wonder along with the students.
He leaves them to their work. The student next to me, in a red Audi cap and gray sweatshirt, is already finishing. Other papers in front of other students, from what I can tell, are not nearly as complete. The teacher circulates, but hasn’t made it to our side yet. Red Audi has a question, though, I’m anticipating it’s going to be to confirm his thinking, to make sure he’s done things right. I wait for the teacher to finish helping another student …
And then Red Audi asks his question. The effort of formulating the question is enough to give him the answer before the teacher can reply. So the teacher waits, listens, and then says “Exactly” with that big smile. And then he calls the attention of the class to the front to check the answers to each problem. He asks if they have understood, if they got it right. I suspect it’s possible that some haven’t, but aren’t admitting it. Or maybe I’m just thinking back to my own unhelpful strategies when I was in high school. To sort of pretend I knew what was going on. A horrible strategy. The teacher is satisfied with their answers, the students look as if they are tracking, and now in the last ten minutes of this 80 minute block, the students are given a packet of problems. They all begin working immediately.
I haven’t thought about discipline issues at all. There are none. There is no shushing, no silly rewards, no cajoling, no shaming. No permission to go to the bathroom. Just discussion about math problems, respectful assistance between some students, and a palpable interest in math. It almost makes me nostalgic for Mr. Omen (I’m not making that name up), my math teacher when I was their age. Almost.