When you have not been into a 4th grade classroom for quite a while, you can be thoroughly intimidated by the depth of thinking possible for kids so young. When I walked into Katy’s class at Leschi elementary I thought I knew how to handle kids. And I do but I’m not as good as I thought I was. So I went in thinking I would have a certain set of questions and after spending time in their environment, watching them teach each other WASL math, move from learners to teachers and “turn and talk” I knew my original plan wouldn’t work. So I punted. Following is the account of my 30 minute visit and 10 minute talk to these engaging students starting with some statistics on the neighborhood, the school and then my interview results.
Leschi elementary is located on the border of the Central District in Seattle’s Leschi/Madrona neighborhood. Originally surrounded by working class modest homes the neighborhood has undergone a fairly significant change over the past 15 – 20 years. To get a picture of the two I’ve created a simple table of information I think is interesting. I included information on both neighborhoods to illustrate the difference a few thousand dollars can make.
Leschi school is not reflective of the neighborhood surrounding it. As of May2010 they reported 68.3% of their students as Black and 14.7% as White. Seventy three point three percent of their students are on free or reduced-price meals, 11.5% special ed. and 17.3% are transitional bilingual. What is particularly interesting to me and the reason why I visited was to gage one class of students interest and instruction in math. According to their 2009-10 MSP tests 40.4% of 3rd graders, 24.5% of 4th graders and 31.7% of 5th graders have met the standard for math. This is considerably lower that the district where 68.7% of 3rd graders, 62% of 4th and 59.9% of 5th graders have met the standard in the Seattle Public schools. Again let’s compare Leschi against other Seattle Public Schools and the State of Washington scores.
So my expectations were not low nor were they neutral. I go in thinking school with a history of poor test scores, students not transitioning into highly competitive programs, parents association (PTA) historically non-existent. So I walk into this class of what, 27 kids, ALL of them with brown faces. One of the brown faces wasn’t African or African American but he wasn’t white either. From the minute I walk in they are engaged, working in groups or individually, on task and on point. There was a notable absence of unproductive chatter and unnecessary movement. This class moved my perception from neutral to positive.
So I get to watch these students figure out the area of shapes using L x W on shapes that look like a capital T, dividing the illustration into two smaller rectangles and making it work. Great. They’re smart and creative. Now it’s my turn and I ask them a series of questions that I’ve pulled out of nowhere. Not the way we’re supposed to conduct an interview but it’s the best I could do. I’m going to talk about the ones that I really came to ask and not the ice breakers.
1. What is your favorite subject?
2. Why is it your favorite subject?
3. Who told you were good at it?
4. Are girls smarter than boys at math? Why?
5. Are boys smarter than girls at math? Why?
6. How do you get better at math?
7. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Now I told the students I would take notes because I’m old and I don’t remember much, but I forgot to take notes so this is what I remember as striking.
1. What is your favorite subject?
This ran the range of lunch, recess, PE, Language Arts, Reading and at least 6 girls and boys saying Math.
2. Why is it your favorite subject?
The best response was predictable, “because I’m good at it.” But other responses were because they liked it or it was fun.
3. Who told you were good at it?
Most of the students said their mother, father, parents or other family members. At least three students said themselves. They had decided they were good and they encouraged themselves to be good in their favorite subject. None of the kids who said themselves had answered that their favorite subject was PE, Art, lunch or recess. All of them had offered an academic class so they believed themselves to be stars in these subjects. Great self-esteem.
4. Are girls smarter than boys at math? Why?
All but one girl raised her hand and she looked around to see she was alone on this one. What was more interesting is that there were a couple of boys that agreed with them at least until I asked the next question and then they had to support their partners. They girls believed they were smarter because they didn’t waste time on things like video games and sports.
5. Are boys smarter than girls at math? Why?
Not only are they smarter, they don’t worry about things like hair and nails either. They were rock solid convinced BUT I think they knew that if there was a real competition they might lose. This was because one girl suggested we do just that. She said that we should have a math-off competition and the loser would have some consequence – don’t remember what it was but it was good.
6. How do you get better at math?
Every single kid believed that they could get better and it took focus, hard work, paying attention, coming to school, asking questions and doing the best they could. Not one kid believed they couldn’t get better and I didn’t see any evidence of feeling inferior even when I know some of those kids were getting one on one instruction because I saw it.
7. What do you want to be when you grow up?
This was a smokescreen to see if anyone said mathematician. They didn’t. But doctor, lawyer, Indian chief weren’t the only choices either. These students were confident in their ability to be successful because they understood the concept of working hard and being focused. We did talk about what they thought was a distraction to getting their work done and there were a few that responded with predictable answers. The one student that could have said “babysitting” or 19 people in the home raised her hand but when the previous answers didn’t lean that way, I don’t think she was comfortable revealing the chaos in her home either.
So what did I get from this exercise? Teachers matter. The fact that this teacher is a hard core math task master (not really but she expects and gets great results) makes a difference. If you know your subject and can make it engaging (she did), make it fun (she did) and get kids to feel successful (she did) they want to learn and they want to shine. And they did.
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