Words of Wisdom

Youth is wasted on the young.

Sunday 6 April 2008

Lightbulb Moments


I have had two revelations this week.

I have become more and more painfully aware that unlike the majority of the female gender, I do not multi task well. On the days that I have a moderately good lesson or two at school, I become acutely attuned to the filthy and unloved state of my house/car/garden. On a day after a house cleaning binge I invariably have dreadful lessons because I have not 'prepped' sufficiently.

On the occasions that I cook dinner we eat at 8.00pm because I have been simultaneously helping the BA with her homework/piano practice/emotional angst or trying to clean the kitchen as I go.

Himself is a wonderful husband because he does not say things to me like
"You never finish anything." or "What are you meant to be doing." or "don't whinge to me about stress when you waste half your life on your blog..." . No, he says nothing like this. Although, occasionally lately he has made pointed comments like "So what time do you think we will be eating?" or "Do you need this mop and bucket anymore?" (finding them in the bathroom after half an hour with nothing mopped yet....).

I think one of my problems is this Asperger's-ish tendency to detail. I start to do something on a big scale and become ensnared by the small scale. I cannot simply wipe the benches, I need to scrub the wall tiles and spray everything with mould killer. I start to sort the washing and when putting some of it away I end up sorting my daughter's drawers. When I am cooking dinner and the BA asks about finding the area of an irregular shape, I cannot simply leave her to it with a brief exhortation to 'look at the example' but must instead drop everything to divide up the shape into rectangles and show her how the geometric laws enable us to deduce the length of the mystery side. Dinner is late again. This may be why Himself does a lot of the cooking :-)

It would be fair to say that it is rather late in my life to be having this revelation.

The second revelation I had this week was about my students.

I attended the second day of a course on Wednesday. It had been a late-ish night I guess and an early morning as I had to get the BA to her bus and then into school to drop off my reliefs before braving the traffic and the storm to get down to Glenelg. I had thoroughly enjoyed the first day of the course and had no reason to believe that I would not similarly reap the benefits of a second day focussed on 'differentiating Maths in the Middle School Curriculum'.

I felt a bit tired on arrival but had a quick coffee and started to 'fire'. The first activity involved the group creating 5 complete squares from a handful of tangram pieces without speaking or indicating. The only thing you were allowed to do was give a piece or pieces away. Four of us quickly completed our squares leaving the unfortunate fifth group member under the full spotlight glare of four pairs of eyes. No pressure there. For some reason she could not arrange the 3 pieces to form a square.

The rest of us of course could see exactly what she needed to do but were unable to help her. One pushed her completed square at our unfortunate colleague who laughed and returned the pieces, seemingly to the amusement of the donating colleague. I think she may have tried again and got a similar response and I remember thinking 'what is she doing? Is she trying to show the other woman how to make the square by showing her pieces???? That doesn't make sense, they are different squares!!!' Silly me.

Eventually after a period of great frustration and a few clues, the confounded colleague reversed two pieces and completed the puzzle. When we were asked to analyse our group interactions, the question arose as to why we had not simply handed the paralysed colleague one of our squares and allowed her to relinquish her pieces in order that we complete the puzzle as a team.

Of course. That was what our friend had tried to do. And we had completely failed to see what she was doing, or think of it ourselves. In fact, all I could think of was "I didn't think we were allowed to do that!!" It was only the beginning of a day full of 'failure to launches' on my part.

On the next activity I missed a vital instruction, and misinterpreted the next. I was lost. I asked my neighbour and thus missed the next instruction. I gave up on the activity. I was angry with myself.

We had been given a series of handouts, unsorted and similar in appearance. When asked to find one, I was confused as to which of two similar front pages was the correct item. "The one without the pictures on the back" came the advice. I flipped both over. Neither had pictures on the back. I turned angrily to my neighbour who patiently took the sheaf of pages and flipped to the last page. One had pictures the other didn't. How could I have made that mistake?

And so it continued all day. I realised at morning tea that I was exhausted and not functioning properly so I had one of my famous catnaps on the floor which did help to some degree. But before lunch we were asked to 'plan a unit of work' and I realised with sickening certainty that I did not even have an idea of unit of work I needed to plan! The problem with special ed is that you are constantly trying to find where the students are 'at' in order to plan for what to teach them. At the moment I do not even know where they're at. :-( More importantly, I don't know where I'm at.

The upshot of all of this was that I was suddenly and sickeningly placed in the position of my students. My own rapid fire explanations and knowledge of my own handouts was laid bare before me. The ease with which a seemingly obvious instruction can be misinterpreted was both frightening and illuminating. Th feeling of inadequacy created such a well of anger in me that I was almost overwhelmed.

I knew exactly how my students felt.

The saving grace for me was that I know I am capable of doing all the maths presented that day and of interpreting all the instructions. I've done it before. I have my Matric in double maths (albeit from 30 years ago). I knew I was tired. I knew I was not operating at full throttle.

But what about my kids? Most of the time they are doing the best they can. Often they are tired or unable to concentrate due to attention deficit difficulties, epilepsy or being 14. They know with the same certainty that I know I can do it, that they cannot do it. They never have. They have always failed in this subject. I gave up after one game. Why am I surprised when they give up before they enter the room?

So with this insight, what do I do? Perhaps just be a little more patient with them? Perhaps make it more fun? More of a game? Perhaps take it less personally when they completely ignore me in the classroom? It is tough but it is something which I have to consider.

On Thursday and Friday I had quite calm and engaging lessons with both Years 9 and 10. I'm not sure what they learned. Perhaps nothing? But at least we weren't battling each other all the way to the bell.

Image credits: Midvale School: Gary Larson
Light bulb: http://gallery.hd.org/_virtual/ByAuthor/AHD/

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

First, multitasking, highly overrated. Second, I really want someone to take a picture of you napping on the floor. I might pay money. Third, great lesson you learned about walking in others' shoes. I remind my girls of it all the time.

Andi said...

These realizations are critical! Some teachers NEVER have them...I work with people who seem to have NO recollection of a time when they felt uncertain or lost. I teach 7th grade, and no matter what my age, I will ALWAYS remember the witch of a woman that was my teacher in 7th grade- she made me feel stupid, told me out loud in front of everyone that I needed a math tutor and that I should spend my entire summer learning my multiplication facts, and she was downright horrid! I try so very hard to think about this time- how I felt, what I really needed, what someone SHOULD have said to me, instead of the awful things she did say- before I attempt to help someone who is struggling. I do tend to be more patient, more understanding, and softer when it comes to these kinds of students, simply because of my own experience at their age. When the whole class is struggling though that is a different story, but maybe many of these students have NEVER felt successful. The special ed students in our school are mixed in with the regular ed students and special ed teachers collaborate with regular ed teachers. My second period class is like this, and I have Cindy, my collaborative special ed teacher. The two of us strive endlessly to figure out how to help everyone, but she has the training on the best ways to help the special ed students...it works nicely, as we have celebrated breakthroughs this year with several of the stuggling ones! I sincrely hope that you are able to figure out something beneficial, as I have NO suggestions for math. I may have mentioned before that I have a serious math phobia...all due to my 7th grade teacher perhaps! I still to this day freeze up when asked to calculate something or use numbers in some way. SAD...I should be in your special ed class, and perhaps I would learn something since you seem to try anything to help them get it! I often think if I were a student in today's world, I might understand math, since we are encouraged to teach in unique ways using manipulatives and providing hands-on activities!
By the way, I have known for the longest time that I can not multi-task...I completely sympathize. At school, I can not continue talking while giving out papers. At home, if I am putting things away, like cookbooks or photo albums, I end up looking through them and sorting them. I get so easily distracted in the middle of one task, that the whole job ends up undone. I do not know how other women do it! Maybe there is hope for us though...the realization is always the first step! Good luck to you.

Arizaphale said...

Hipmomma: If someone takes one...you will be the first to know :-)

Andi: I love your comments. So thoughtful and enlightening. I <3 manipulatives. Wish my students felt the same way :-) And a pox on your seventh grade teacher!!!!!1

Maggie said...

I have to agree with hipmomma - I think that multi tasking is probably over-rated. While I do it all the time (and I think do an okay job at it), I sometimes have to realize that there are some things that would benefit more from my complete attention, rather than a fraction of it when I am also doing a million other things.

I used to have horrific attention to detail, and would frequently miss seeing the forest because I was so busy looking at the trees. But the more I multi-tasked, the more I gained the ability to look more at the 'bigger picture'. While not always a good thing, I have to say that is one overwhelming benefit that I have gained from going in a million different directions at the same time!

natalie said...

I like to think I'm a good multi-tasker, but inevitably that means things only get half done around here.

Don't those AHA moments frighten you, just a tad? I want to know myself, but when I have a moment when I REALIZE something new about myself, it always takes my breath away. I so try to remember and understand where my students are and where they are coming from. I work so hard at developing a sense of community in my room so that they are willing to work hard for me and are willing to take risks. That approach works for some--they need that sense of community. Other students would flourish with a teacher like me or a teacher who is stand-off-ish. Hm...multi-tasking has resulted in a response that doesn't make much sense.

I'm glad that you found yourself in an uncomfortable place and that you recognized that significance of that. You are a remarkable woman.

Anonymous said...

Those epiphanies have a way of "appearing" when we least expect them to. Hooray for you for being able to recognize some critical insights instead of letting your frustration call the day a complete waste. Most impressive!! Keep us posted on how you are able to use this new found knowledge with your students!
Elisa

Little sis said...

I think the inability to multitask and the tendency to start new jobs in the middle of 10 other jobs is genetic! Your youngest sister (me!) also suffers from exactly what you describe so it gave me a good laugh. My hubby must despair at the number of times I have burned the dinner because I've just decided to help Georgia with her piano practise or check something on the internet! I too can't just clean the kitchen - I have to CLEAN the kitchen and that takes care of Saturday morning! Your comments about experiencing that panic from not understanding something is also something I've recently experienced at an IT course. If my thoughts wandered for just a few seconds or I spent a bit too long on a question when the next explanation had started, I was lost. Fortunately (or unfortunately for the teacher!) I am mouthy enough to shout out that I'm lost and ask for help but there are so many people who don't feel confident enough to do this - how much harder for them? I also had moments when I was teaching secondary school German and French when I thought about how confusing it must all seem to them and then had brief moments of trying to be patient... it's a difficult thing in a more mixed ability type class as you are conscious of not wanting the brighter kids to get board (PACE was a word frequently bandied about during my teacher training). Of course, this is where differentiation comes in however we then come back to multi- tasking which is clearly why I wasn't very good at it :>) Take heart sis, you are not alone in your frustrations xx

kim said...

It is my belief that in order to teach special ed, you have to be a little special ed yourself. Now, don't take that wrong and remember that I, too was a special ed teacher.... It's not bad to be put into our students' shoes now and then.
Love the cartoon, btw. I gave a coffee mug to my mom one year with that exact cartoon on it. She was infamous for doing things like that.