Teachers, Susanne Luhmann contends, are “preoccupied with methods, or the how-to of teaching.” She suggests a shift away from transmission strategies and towards “an inquiry into the conditions for understand, or refusing, knowledge” (p.7). Shoshana Felman asserts that it is “the refusal to acknowledge one’s own implication in the information” (p. 79) that leads to ignorance. In my six years of living, working, and going to school in the San Francisco area I have had to face many situations than challenged both what I know and my conceptions of myself. This site will tell you more about the path that I have taken and my thoughts on education.
Susanne Luhmann suggests that we ask ourselves as both teachers and learners the following two questions: “What does this information do to one’s own sense of self? What does the knowledge ask me to reconsider about myself and the subject studied?” (p. 8).
I invite you to reflect on how the information on this site changes your own conceptions of yourself, and to comment with your thoughts on any page as you feel moved to do so.
“All I can do is tell the truth. No, that isn’t so—I have missed it. There is no truth that, in passing through awareness, does not lie. But one runs after it all the same.” -Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis
Hi James,
I noticed a request for sharing ideas regarding Middle School Math teaching at freecycle. I am no longer a full time middle school math teacher, but I continue to design materials and share them. Presently, I tutor and sub mostly in high school math classes in Marin.
“Hot Chalk” is a resource for lesson plan ideas (you may already know of this site). I also have used Geometer’s Sketchpad rather extensively in tutoring, and some middle school math teachers use it as well. It has algebra and pre-algebra resources in addition to being a quite high quality geometry teaching tool.
If you want to interact a bit regarding curriculum, I’ve got quite a lot of materials and ideas. Some topics that come to mind are:
1. Helpful calculation tricks with proofs that strengthen understand of key topics.
2. Kinetic learning with songs. I am an educational songwriter and have some YouTube videos up to help kids and teachers
http://www.youtube.com/user/lexinaut/videos.
All of these materials have been very useful working with kids in many classrooms.
3. Explanations of real world uses of math that middle school students can understand and will find interesting. (related to flashlights, headlights, searchlights, kidney stones, solar power, dangerous asteroids, radios, computers, and more). Lack of explanation of the real world significance of math causes students to consider math much more irrelevant than it actually is.
Good luck with your new assignment!
–Norm Milstein