I bet if I asked most teachers on my staff these questions they would defiantly ponder the thought about what is math and why do we teach it? We often have philosophies in areas of language arts and our approach to teaching and setting up a language art program. What about the set up of our mathematics program? We often feel driven by the abundance of outcomes and curriculum provided to us to teach in the school year/grade. As I read the three assigned articles, I found myself thinking back to my approach to teaching math. I do truly enjoy math, and I wish my students shared the same enthusiasm that I do about the subject but there are many times I feel like the robot in front of the classroom.
I often feel that I am taking on the Formalism philosophical attitude that Hersh speaks of. I feel that there are times, too often for my liking, that I resort to rote calculations and finding the right answer by following the rules. I do think there is some need for this, but I also believe that personal connections foster understanding and ownership to a student’s individual learning. I hope to focus on my approach to teaching and look for different approaches and/or philosophies that could work in my current math setting, as we all know the approach each year changes as we work with different groups of students and individuals.
I also feel that our provinces approach or philosophical attitude is leaning toward the humanistic philosophy, creating a mathematics curriculum that hopes to increase the likelihood that a student can learn math. I guess I could ask the question now WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LEARN MATH?
