Algebra is hard for students AND teachers
September 11, 2008 by mr. g
This is my second year of teaching.
I’ve quickly come to realize that the whole “in your second year of teaching, things get so much easier!” deal is actually a myth. It’s a myth.
Well, at least it is for me.
If i had 5 periods of geometry classes, it’d be a different story. I didn’t begin the school year as a geometry teacher, but I did teach it from the months from December to June. I know where I want my students to be by June. We have direction.
The reason why this year challenges me more, extends me further, requires even more of myself is algebra. Algebra. Algebra is more difficult than geometry. All the basics are covered in algebra. All the essentials. Without success in algebra, you’re likely to not find success in every subsequent math class. Trust me when I say: it’s HARD to teach.
The fact that all 3 classes consist of algebra repeaters exponentially ups the difficulty. Each student falls into one of the following categories:
1. They’ve got real bad math skills and need intense algebraic remediation.
2. They’ve got bad “school” skills – so they’re either truant, never do homework, or cannot stay focused in class.
3. They KNOW algebra, but their previous teacher failed them for reason A or B and now they’re forced to sit in my class BORED for an entire school year.
Lastly, every student is burdened with this cold, hard fact:
They weren’t good enough to pass algebra last year and now they must do it all over again.
Part of me wishes I could clone myself 32 times so I could give each student an hour of one-on-one help everyday. But I can’t, and it feels like a lot of what I say and teach passes right through them. It feels like I’m throwing sparks of algebra knowledge at each student, but they’ve got some kind of forcefield blocking my attack.
Just like last year, I know it’ll take a few weeks of ‘feeling things out’ before I know exactly what type of teacher I need to be for my students. But right now it’s real difficult. It sucks. It’s draining. And I wish it were Friday… everyday.
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In other news, my geometry classes are bomb. 4th period made my week today. Each student completely engaged, curious about the content, participating. When they enjoy class, I enjoy class. When things run smooth on all cylinders like that, there’s no other job I’d rather do
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[...] on a new prep feels like repeating the 1st year process all over again. And like I said before, Algebra is much more difficult to teach than Geometry, especially if it’s to a group whose [...]