Eisner Reading

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The first stop I had was about the reward system. When I first started tutoring, I found the reward system to be quite effective. We had punch cards and whenever students finished a page in their workbooks, they would get a punch. Students were eager to finish their pages so that they could spend these cards on rewards such as candy/toys. Now that I have been tutoring longer, I can also see the negative aspects. Some students only had the intentions of finishing their cards, they didn't care about the math. Sometimes it got to a point where they would ask to skip pages if they were too hard. It created this loop that if we let them skip some pages, they got into the habit of always wanting to skip pages, even if they were easy but just looked difficult. Reward systems have to be used sparingly and appropriately. Rewards should complement the lesson and not be the end goal for students. The goal for us is to teach students the process of learning, not the end reward.

"Schools have a role, it seems to me, to offer the young and opportunity to develop the kinds of intellectual process...". This quote from the reading makes me think about student's perception of math, particularly trigonometry or algebra. I've heard many students who say "When am I going to use this stuff in real life?". I always find that question hard to answer because it is kind of a valid question. A good chunk of students will never need this particular information in their future, such as angles or ratios of a triangle. But I always tell them that math is about problem solving, and learning to think logically. Of course a large part of society might not need to use Pythagoras in their future, but understanding how to solve problems logically and learning the process is a great life skill.

I think the BC curriculum is going in a good direction, especially with the emphasis on these core competency skills. The curriculum for the sciences or math needs to be built from a baseline of, what do students need to learn? But this needs to be supplemented by the process of teaching students the value of their own education. The curriculum should guide students to take initiative in their own learning. The shift towards an inquiry method of teaching is a positive step towards that.

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