Back in October I attended a workshop run by Dan Meyer. Maybe you can't tell from my last sentence, but I am trying to play it cool. I GOT TO MEET DAN MEYER IN PERSON! WOW! To me, he is a superstar of the math teaching world. I must admit, I felt like a geek, telling everyone and anyone who would listen to me for weeks beforehand - "I am going to attend a workshop led by Dan Meyer!" Even my dad, who is a retired math teacher himself, gave me a polite smile and a blank look, even after I explained who he is...My husband laughed at me, but I didn't care. The day was awesome and inspiring, and I am going to include it in my Christmas letter, once I write it (yes, I am a big procrastinator).
My first impression of Dan Meyer as I walked in the room was that he was much taller than he looked on his TED video. He may be 6'5". At times I was worried he might hit his head on the projector hanging down from the ceiling as the day went on. As larger than life as Mr. Meyer appeared, he impressed me as a very real and down-to-earth individual.
I introduced myself, and we shook hands. He thought we had met somewhere before, and I explained to him that maybe he recalled me from the time I emailed him about using his website 101 questions. My picture appears in my email. He explained that the website is much easier to use now, and he was right. I was able to finally post a picture of my own that day. If you are curious, here's the link to it: Big Fish.
Since I posted it back on October 11th, as I write this, I have earned 8 skips and 1 question (my own). Yes, not a big perplexity rating, but it's a start. Some day I will write some rockin' 3 acts to go with more pictures.
Since that day I have shown several of my colleagues the website and how to search for certain grade levels and subjects, and I think they have found it helpful. What I really liked about learning about the Three Acts from Dan Meyer is that he explained how to use them and that they aren't an everyday thing. Not every concept can be taught or introduced with a creative video/picture activity. But they are a way to engage that math-phobic crowd, the crowd that Mr. Meyer spent his teaching years working with in California. This question that he asked sort of sums it up, "How do you motivate a student that is a homeless alcoholic?"
The answer to that question ended up being to inspire a student's natural human nature toward intellectual curiosity. Show them something awesome, something that perplexes them. Invite them to make a guess about these situations, and then invite them to try to come up with what is needed to solve the problem. If only math could be like that every day! Even Dan Meyer admitted that there is a need for "practice" a.k.a. "Homework" and that's not a bad thing, but even after 19 years in teaching I still work every day to find that perfect balance. That's why teaching is an art.
One last amusing anecdote from the day - we were working on a problem, and Dan was trying to inspire our perplexity by mentioning a time at another conference when an English teacher questioned his math. He wondered aloud who had let an English teacher into a math workshop, and I had to smile. I am another such "weirdo" certified in English and math. However, I was able to see the previous English teacher's mistake - she was reading a math problem grammatically. I wish I could remember the problem, something about assuming an exponential situation could be calculated in a linear way....what struck me as funny about Dan mentioning that was how sometimes math teachers can seem so exclusive even though we are trying to do the opposite and make math more accessible.
One thing Dan does inspire other teachers to do is to reflect in a blog, and network with other such math teacher bloggers to help refine this teaching balance, the balance between perplexity and practice. I am an English teacher, so it does marry my two interests - writing about math, a perfect match, now only if I had the discipline. It's not too late to start a New Year's Resolution, right?
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