HumaneMaths

Introduction This course has been a life changer for me. I recognized myself as a teacher (or rather ex teacher) who brought in differentiation in the classroom of maths. I have understood finally my own teaching philosophy and that is ‘inclusion’. That is, “Develop classroom content that allows every student to achieve standards while meeting the individual needs of diverse learners”, (Voltz, n.d.). The focus of inclusion has been for me to have all students engaged with maths and optimize their potential. The origin of my search has been when I started teaching and had students chase me for marks. I felt, even as a new teacher, that it was wrong. When I ended teaching, I was able to personalize maths learning for all students in the class using my own model of differentiation. I believe that when you place ‘inclusion’ as the mainstay of the teaching philosophy, there no end to how much you need to learn. For diversity of students keeps widening each year and it is a state of ‘here ...

  Most surprising learning area!      Some of the most dramatic physical change that occurs during this period is in the brain ( Luman Learning, 2018). Their brain growth shows through development of the physical from reflexive actions to independent movement. I don’t think that I would look at an infant crawling in the same way again. How intelligent and aware infants are! And how unconsciously most of us in my culture treat them as. To know how they need specifics at every step was surprising. And at every step, one can either help them towards a safe adulthood or destroy the sense of safety. I feel everyone before turning parents must know the development stages of infants.   The most enlightening moment!      This is when the development theories fell into place! When I saw Piaget, Kohlberg and Erikson all together as individuals who defined the development in various areas of a growing human being for us. Understanding how from infan...

  The willingness to do something where there are no guarantees ( Brown , 2020, 09.31) is how adults create learning spaces for themselves. This is different from the spaces where kids are for they do not have choice, unless a teacher uses that as a behaviour modification technique (Zhou & Brown, 2015). My narrative is my own learning space currently. I chose to be a part of a project that took leap of faith to be there. Right after joining, I could see that the experience holds a challenge that I have never faced before. All my learning styles were stretched to the brim with this goal. The experiences were many and varied and the process of assimilation leading to accommodation was hard (Orey, 2010, pp.38).   I was to convince a team of EdTech enthusiasts with no experience in developing math curriculum about the basic principles of designing a curriculum and launch their project within 3 months. If we are the constructors of our own knowledge, then it is up to us h...

Concrete Experience In my work place, when they were promoting many employees, they passed me over. It broke my heart but being me, I had decided not to ask for anything but opt for lateral growth and work with many teams. Then my coach told me that one needs to ask for what wants in corporate life. And I went by her suggestion, ignoring my feelings, and did that and found that I was refused on account of my behaviour or inability to work in a team. This shattered me on two fold manner. One was to be refused and other was to ask for it and refused, which has hurt my self esteem a lot. Reflective Observations I wonder why I do not listen to myself and exteriorize my decision making. That makes me even angrier. So now I am angry with myself for asking, angry with management for refusing and angry with myself for not listening to myself. That is a lot of emotions to process. And there lies the answer. Too many emotions to process! Abstract Conceptualization I learnt as the last sentence ...

My whole life is lived experientially, as (Kolb, 1984) I move to new experiences, gather resources to grow and then evolve further. With age, I am able to do this much better and with greater rationality. In this reflective piece, I am writing about an experience that devastated me recently.   Concrete Experience: “what I did”  I set up a team for the company as we awaited the arrival of the new boss. He is the Vice President (VP), I am the Director with Associates under me. We all were excited with his coming. The VP arrived and with a rolling of multiple circumstances, decided that I am not the person that he wants in the team. He wanted to work directly with the associates. Behind my back, he carefully collected against me to give to the management and if it wasn’t for the top management, he would have got me fired. My mistake? I trusted him as all the other leaders in the organization are individuals with a sense of integrity. What was worse that part of my team also went ...

  Introduction The International Baccalaureate, a program from Switzerland, integrates mastery in content with life skills. It is a 3-19 years’ continuum with the Middle Years Programme focused on 11-16 year olds and the Diploma Programme and Career-related Programme meeting the needs of 16-19 year old. The overarching objective is to create a space for students to grow into holistic human beings that make the world a better place through inter cultural understanding and respect ( Iborganization ,). It is, as a student reflected, “ who I am, who I want tobe and how my being at IB school would support that ”. IBPYP IB starts with the IBPYP which is a curriculum for students aged 3 to 12 years. At the end of which is the PYP project, which is the strongest pillar for PYP and a valuable and pivotal experience in the life of the schools, families and students ( Coppersmith ). The students have a lot of freedom but within the bounds of a very structured and respectful support of t...

          Someone asked me a question, “How did you use technology to change communication when you were teaching?” And I went down memory lane.          I thought of the biggest challenge for us at an IB school, LMS or a Learning Management System?      When I was teaching, I got a job with an IB school in 2006, Pathways Word school (School, n.d.) and it was a turnaround for me. One of the things I was introduced to was the learning management system, (veracross, n.d.). I embraced it fully.      For students, it was a channel of communication of their homework and upcoming assessments. I did away with the school diary and uploaded religiously all classwork and homework on it for them to check. The students were not used to such self-efficacy and would want me to write the homework on the board, like it was done for centuries. I refused and stayed consistent with my approach.      ...

Are you a coach or a teacher or both-to the students? In my work with teachers, I often tell teachers to look at themselves as a coach. What is the difference? The work of a subject teacher is to ensure that the subject is taught properly. The work of a coach is to ensure that the potential is maximized for each student. The two are different. The subject teacher has ‘subject’ as the focus. Have I taught the subject well? The main love is for the subject and the fulfillment of syllabus. But for the coach, the focus is the ‘student’. Have I helped this student to maximize his potential? The main love is for the child and fulfillment of ‘dharma’. The dharma that each mentor feels for the mentee. And that is when students remember you forever for you have touched a life. The joy is that when you are a mentor, they work on their math too and actually it is killing 2 birds with a single stone.   ​I have always maintained our students our best judges. So when I built my website, w w...

Paul Halmos said, “The only way to learn Maths, is to do Maths.” Any Maths teacher would second that. The students who succeed in Maths are the ones who do Maths —a lot of it! Everyone  doesn't  agree What about those students for whom the logical-mathematical intelligence is not their dominant trait. Sitting day after day in a room where the language spoken is not the one which they really understand, they lose connection and consequently interest. They get labelled as - ‘weak children’. But they may be ‘strong sportsmen’ or ‘strong writers’. How about using that intelligence...? My solution My solution is: sprinkle Maths curriculum with non-scientific subjects, i.e.,integrate Maths with English, Art, History, Sports, Music, Drama or Geography. For example Write a letter to a friend explaining how to add fractions with different denominators. Draw a tiling design using four shapes. It should have two lines of symmetry. Present dramatically a convers...

Respect the students. Respect what their inherent qualities are. Do not force them to be what you think they should be! Develop the insight to sense what they are and mould yourself around it. That is the beginning of a Humane relationship... when you meet the student as a human-being and not a "70% in Maths to be taken to 95%". 

This may sound controversial to many or some of you; however, it is not important to me how good or bad my student is in my subject. I have no external standard to measure his/her ability against. What is important to me is ‘Is he/she up to – his/her – best’. When I respect learning differences, I don’t just respect that each child learns differently, I also respect that each child may want to learn the amount of Maths too differently! So instead of a standard that everyone must reach, I would develop a hawk-like observation to assess – how high should this kid be pushed? Tanya’s story Strong, confident and clear, she knows what she wants to do in life - Journalism. She is already working towards it. Maths is not her top priority. Should I push her in order for her to have a report card that says A+ in all...or should I cut her some slack and support her in her pursuits? The answer to this question decides at which point you are on the scale of HumaneMaths.

We are educators before Maths teachers.  We are con cerned more about the 'child' than the 'child in my subject'.  This is a very subtle shift in the teacher’s mindset that I am talking about.  Connect with the child...get to know who he is, what his passion is and what the place of Maths is in his life. That done, you have a humane relationship with him. And then, he 'will' do Math ‘as much as possible’. Once, there was a student in grade 12, ISC Maths in Bangalore.  A passionate artist, he had set his heart into going for the designing school.  One day, he missed my Maths class.  Classmates told me he was into the Art class before mine and I thought I knew what happened.  A couple of classes later he walked up to me and sat next to me. He said, "I was so lost in designing, I lost track of time." From the bottom of my heart, I understood what he intended. I asked him, "So what about the work you missed?" He said, "Gi...

Considering the role of education is to bring out the highest of which any student is capable of, what kind of classrooms and school structures do we create?  Fluid, semi-structured and sensitive spaces where the possibility of developing creativity is alive; where students feel relaxed and secure enough to allow their natural selves to emerge; where exams is 'one of the skills' we master! What is my role in that situation? When all information is available on the Internet, what is the role of a teacher? 1.            I transfer my passion to them. 2.            I organize learning atmosphere for interpersonal skill fostering. 3.            I dialogue with the students and push their mental boundaries. 4.            I burst with joy when someone says, "Now I got it."...

After creating classes with multiple strategies over the past few years, I feel I am more of a facilitator now, just like a manager in the class. I organize and plan the proceedings of the class. My activities include: ·               Get into a group or work solo ·               Check out the problems given ·               Check out any old concept forgotten on the website  ·               You got 20 min to try this out ·               Discussion in the end! The students respond well! I suppose any system that focuses on human empowerment will always eventually work...no matter how much the syllabus!

From teacher/knower to facilitator and now to collaborator, my journey goes on and never ends.  Collaborating in the class is to treat students as collaborators, i.e., the drivers of the class;not to have the teacher as the knower and doer of all;to ask them for preferences whenever possible;to give them space for taking decisions;to seek their feedback and advice as and when possible. 1.            Decide your own deadline for the project; 2.            Choose your topic for the project; 3.            How are the classes going; 4.            Any suggestions for improvement; 5.            Would you prefer this...or that...; Adolescents like it ... Choice

I am turning more into a designer in the class, i.e., a facilitator. Observe this: I hand out to students a worksheet with eight questions with following instructions on it: 1.            First four are CW. You may discuss with peers or me. 2.            Once ready, 5th and 6th are a test. To be marked. 3.            Once done, 7th and 8th are challenges. Optional. Only for those who wish to advance their learning. Works wonders! I get so much time to sit back and observe them or ... have a cuppa tea. And they love it too. They feel trusted!

Letting go of the students has been the most difficult.  To do my best in planning for the classes and then let go of the outcome.  How could I leave them?  What will they do without me? But they will do what they can right?  To allow them to choose their level and let it be!  It is difficult but works wonders... Peace comes over me and the students.