This is it. The final chapter. {sigh}
Summary
This chapter ties together the entire book and gives strategies for implementing all of the big ideas within your math block/classroom. I realize that this really isn't a summary, but there's just too much to talk about. You have to go and read it.
My Big Takeaway
Although this is the final chapter of the book, this is only the beginning for me. There is SO much that I want to learn more about and change about the way I teach math. Instead of wrapping things up, this chapter has created so many more things I want to learn more about.
Three Important Quotes
This chapter ties together the entire book and gives strategies for implementing all of the big ideas within your math block/classroom. I realize that this really isn't a summary, but there's just too much to talk about. You have to go and read it.
My Big Takeaway
Although this is the final chapter of the book, this is only the beginning for me. There is SO much that I want to learn more about and change about the way I teach math. Instead of wrapping things up, this chapter has created so many more things I want to learn more about.
Three Important Quotes
This is so important. Worksheets aren't math. Doing the same problem over and over isn't math. Math is a way of viewing the world. Our math classrooms need to reflect that.
There was discussion of "Mathland". It's the place students go when they enter their math classroom. It's a place where bizarre word problems involve a shocking amount of watermelons, apples, or some other kind of strange object. It's a place where the problems aren't real life, but a very odd approximation of life that has been stretched into a neat and tidy formulaic word problem. Our math work should absolutely include real-life problems and problem solving, but an overly contrived situation that meets our math standard criteria is not real-world.
Is there anything more powerful than this? Our students MUST learn to struggle and learn to LOVE it.
Final Thoughts
I'm so glad that I've finished this book, but as I said before, I've only just begun. I'd like to take the online class for educators that Jo Boaler offers. I'd like to pick back through this book chapter by chapter. I'd like to dig through the appendix page by page. This will be a book that I return to again and again and again. I know it.
I'm so glad that I've finished this book, but as I said before, I've only just begun. I'd like to take the online class for educators that Jo Boaler offers. I'd like to pick back through this book chapter by chapter. I'd like to dig through the appendix page by page. This will be a book that I return to again and again and again. I know it.