I don't say those words aloud to any student, but sometimes I think them!
One of my goals is to work on more real life math skills--contextualized instruction as the jargon has it. I have several students who cannot do even two digit multiplication without a calculator. There isn't much point in teaching them to divide fractions or subtract integers, but there are many ways they should be able to use numbers in their lives.
Today I asked the afternoon class to estimate the number of people in South Bend. Numbers ranged from 100 on each side of town to 5000 in all. The actual number is about 105,000. I then asked how many lived in Indiana. How is it that two of the students guessed 50,000--fewer than the number in South Bend? What are they thinking? or not thinking? One said something about guessing that would include Gary. Right! And a whole lot more!
J quickly checked the population of the USA on her cell phone. She was unable to read the number correctly, but she found the information easily.
B said "Why do we need to learn this stuff?" She thought there were about 4-500 living in South Bend. It's a small town and she knew almost everybody, she said.
It is a very limited view of life, a life is limited to the "hood" and to the present time. And there is very little interest in extending knowledge much farther than that. That's the story in my afternoon class of 17-20 year olds. They don't motivate each other and it is pretty hard for me to find a way to do so.
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