“If you have taught
And there is no learning,”
Said a tutor many years ago,
“Then you have not taught.”
I struggled with this
For it did not make sense
And in my view way back then
This tutor had to be dense.
It was one of my early courses
At Erdiston Teachers’ College
And as far as I was concerned,
This was utter garbage.
He was blaming the teacher
For a pupil not learning:
For him, it was a teacher problem:
Transmitting not receiving.
I was young and cocky then
And I would have none of this
For, regarding my teaching prowess,
There was a lengthy list.
I was not only a natural
But I was endowed with passion,
Add to that a love for children
With subsequent flair and fashion.
I’d had a fair bit of success too
With pupils passing exams,
So, this tutor’s nonsensical ideology
I was forced to body-slam.
He was a mathematics tutor
And his grading was very tough,
After a few assignments results
You knew it was going to be rough.
For that mathematics course
I averaged just C+
And I must truthfully confess
At times I felt almost crushed.
He assured me years later
That I was a very good student
And he took some of the responsibility
For my subsequent achievement.
“If you have taught
And there is no learning,”
This tutor had stated,
“Then you have not taught.”
Back then he was my teacher
And the reason I was distraught,
My not learning was a teacher problem,
Yes! It was his
fault!
C+ was his mental set!
It was not really mine,
He was clearly annoyed with himself
Over a fixation back in time.
I have come a mighty long way
Since those early days
And slowly but
surely
I have mended my ways.
Much experience has been gained
From the exposure I have had
And the truth be told,
The good has eclipsed the bad.
I am retired now,
It is almost twelve years
And I am proving more and more
My greatest fear.
That that tutor was right
I now have no doubts,
One by one, the arguments I held
I have thrown them all out.
It’s a teaching problem
That retards pupil-learning
And this is particularly evident
In basic problem solving.
“Expose the pupils
To many and varied problems
And by the time of the examination
They will be able to solve them.”
Sounds good, Yes?
But so very wrong
Yet many teachers’ hold on this
Remains very strong.
“Practise, practise, practise!”
That’s the way some others go
But this too is just as wrong
As one practises what one knows.
Often the foundation is shaky
Or there may be none at all
And so, the scaffolding put in place
Must eventually fall.
The syllabus reigns supreme
At the expense of pupil learning
And it is often covered down
With little understanding.
“Telling” the pupil is optimum
Like the baking of a cake,
"This is what you do next,
Hurry up! It's getting very late!"
Most pupils are asking HOW?
Very few are asking WHY?
And with concept building non-existent,
There is little to apply.
Three basic levels to doing Math:
Skill, comprehension, application,
Problem solving rides on all of these
And is based on investigation.
Concept building is critical
And must never be treated lightly,
It must be informed by models
Either concrete or pictorially.
Much of math is outside
And of an informal nature,
Bench-ridden within the classroom
Is like old-age stricture.
From the intuitive to the concrete,
From the concrete to the semi-concrete,
From the semi-concrete to the abstract,
Not one we should delete.
Then the application should follow
With the communication right behind
And if the student can reflect all this,
How to learn is right on time.
The best learner is a teacher
That communicates what he learns
And with the passion that he derives,
For more learning he will yearn.
Learning is not the target
But how to learn is, instead,
And when the pupil hits the bullseye
We can say he is well-read.
Learning-strategies will develop
Problem solving will be a breeze,
And with less teacher-dependency
Pupils will learn with ease.
Learning is the ‘fish’ one catches,
How to learn is the “how to fish”,
The former is not sustainable,
The latter is the desired wish.
Do not ignore a pupil’s ‘why’
With a “This is the way to do it”,
Instead, encourage intelligent questioning
To make him better equipped.
Teacher, take responsibility
For the learning of every pupil,
Treat each one as your own offspring
And do not suffer in silence.
Encourage pupils to share
Ideas and methodologies,
Utilize their composite brain power
To come up with strategies.
Assign yourself a mentor
Or, maybe one or two or three,
And with the input from them all
The better you should see.
Mathematics is a teaching problem
And one the teacher must solve,
The student’s learning is the variable
That each teacher must resolve.
Stewart Russell © April 4, 2023
