29 July 2006 – 18:29 – Home
I feel much better today. Although I still have some small marks of last week’s alcohol poisoning, I feel good somehow. It must be the vertex of my life parabola or a local asymptote which goes up like a rocket in a small interval. I whistled almost all day, even in the classroom, feel happy and cheerful. I made stupid jokes in the class, laughed at myself, sang songs and always smiled. I hope it will last long. As I know from my past experiences, I am more inclined to see the empty half of the glass. Today, I enjoyed the full half of the glass...
Last week, I only missed one class. According to plan, the head of department was going to observe my class. I have been told that when he comes into my class, behave as if he is not there. As a teacher of 6 years, I have been observed many times by administrators. In fact, I myself observed Science and Math teachers sometimes. I am aware of how these observations affect teacher’s attitude. It is exactly like Schrödinger’s cat problem. If you open the box, the cat will die. If you don’t open the box, you will never know whether the cat is alive or dead. If somebody observes my class, I will definitely change my attitude towards my class and my students. I will try to look more confident with what I teach and more reliable with what I do. It is impossible to behave the same. There is only one way to make a 100% unbiased observation: Installing a hidden video camera inside the room. The teacher will have no idea about its presence and he will teach as if he is not being observed. However, nowhere in the world installing a hidden camera in a classroom can be considered as a polite way to check teacher’s abilities. It is also an expensive way. In addition, how can the administrator be sure that teacher is unaware of the camera? If the teacher knows it, then it would be the same thing. I believe in transparency and teaching can be considered as a transparent job. To evaluate teacher’s abilities of teaching should not be a tough job. The first judge in this problem is always students of course! They judge their teachers everyday, every minute. Since they are the ones who are sitting in the room to learn, they must be the best measure to check teacher’s capabilities.
As a math teacher, I believe Math can not be taught, it can be discovered in the class. Teacher’s two main jobs are very simple:
To facilitate, encourage and avoid students wasting time: This means teacher needs to be very knowledgeable in his course and he needs to be authority. A class needs this authority since otherwise it will go to wrong direction. A good math teacher does not use math books in the class other than using them for giving exercises. He has to be sure on everything he teaches. This does not mean he has to remember everything he will teach. Quite the opposite! He has to know how to find out the information and show students the way of getting knowledge, not the knowledge. If he/she is teaching inner angles of a triangle, then he/she must show how to find out the sum of interior angles of a triangle rather than saying that “A+B+C=180 and now solve this question, A=85, B=71 then What is C?” Math is the only discipline, which does not need extra materials (laboratories) other than mind. Then it must be easier to construct math concepts. High school students never need to learn anything further than what they can prove. Anything beyond proof, should not be taught in high schools!
I feel much better today. Although I still have some small marks of last week’s alcohol poisoning, I feel good somehow. It must be the vertex of my life parabola or a local asymptote which goes up like a rocket in a small interval. I whistled almost all day, even in the classroom, feel happy and cheerful. I made stupid jokes in the class, laughed at myself, sang songs and always smiled. I hope it will last long. As I know from my past experiences, I am more inclined to see the empty half of the glass. Today, I enjoyed the full half of the glass...
Last week, I only missed one class. According to plan, the head of department was going to observe my class. I have been told that when he comes into my class, behave as if he is not there. As a teacher of 6 years, I have been observed many times by administrators. In fact, I myself observed Science and Math teachers sometimes. I am aware of how these observations affect teacher’s attitude. It is exactly like Schrödinger’s cat problem. If you open the box, the cat will die. If you don’t open the box, you will never know whether the cat is alive or dead. If somebody observes my class, I will definitely change my attitude towards my class and my students. I will try to look more confident with what I teach and more reliable with what I do. It is impossible to behave the same. There is only one way to make a 100% unbiased observation: Installing a hidden video camera inside the room. The teacher will have no idea about its presence and he will teach as if he is not being observed. However, nowhere in the world installing a hidden camera in a classroom can be considered as a polite way to check teacher’s abilities. It is also an expensive way. In addition, how can the administrator be sure that teacher is unaware of the camera? If the teacher knows it, then it would be the same thing. I believe in transparency and teaching can be considered as a transparent job. To evaluate teacher’s abilities of teaching should not be a tough job. The first judge in this problem is always students of course! They judge their teachers everyday, every minute. Since they are the ones who are sitting in the room to learn, they must be the best measure to check teacher’s capabilities.
As a math teacher, I believe Math can not be taught, it can be discovered in the class. Teacher’s two main jobs are very simple:
To facilitate, encourage and avoid students wasting time: This means teacher needs to be very knowledgeable in his course and he needs to be authority. A class needs this authority since otherwise it will go to wrong direction. A good math teacher does not use math books in the class other than using them for giving exercises. He has to be sure on everything he teaches. This does not mean he has to remember everything he will teach. Quite the opposite! He has to know how to find out the information and show students the way of getting knowledge, not the knowledge. If he/she is teaching inner angles of a triangle, then he/she must show how to find out the sum of interior angles of a triangle rather than saying that “A+B+C=180 and now solve this question, A=85, B=71 then What is C?” Math is the only discipline, which does not need extra materials (laboratories) other than mind. Then it must be easier to construct math concepts. High school students never need to learn anything further than what they can prove. Anything beyond proof, should not be taught in high schools!
To make sure that students can apply the concepts they discovered: Learning trigonometry might seem useless to many people, especially those who will not pursue a career in engineering, math or science. Like many other disciplines, math has its own beauty and elegance. It does not need any applications in real life to be beautiful. However, it might be a stupid idea to expect from everyone enjoying this beauty. For many people, being in a math class is almost same as being punched by Muhammad Ali. Then, we have to show our students how to apply math concepts in real life problems. Unfortunately, this part of class can not be discovered. It can be searched by students. One thing should not be forgotten here: Math teacher don’t need to find applications for all topics of math. We all know that simple algebra, basic geometry, some trigonometry are all useful in real life situations but using complex numbers or matrix algebra for real life problems are hard and sometimes make students more confused. I remember, I showed my students how to use logarithm in financial calculations, in finding sound level and in evaluating pH value of a solution. These are good applications. I also tried to show them fractals in complex numbers and it did not work. Although fractals look amazing once you could do it by a computer or even by hand-drawing, it is very hard to explain the relationship between n-th root of a complex number and the nice looking fractal. In these case, teacher must leave the beauty of math at that point since going further will mess up students’ minds and make the job more difficult.
Anyway, I was not going to write on Math but somehow it came out. I was planning to write about my birthday. It was on 7th July. I was remembered by J, J’s parents, S and my brothers (in this historical order) Good enough for a 29 year old man. What makes me think about birthdays is something different.
I did not have a birthday party during my childhood. I guess my parents did not know birthday is an important day for one’s life or they did not care. They actually do not know their own birthday. My mother says, she was born in cherry month (April in village language) and my father says harvest month (might be July, August or even September). They never had birthday parties so their children never had either. It is that simple. I had small parties in the schools I worked before. I have been remembered by students and they usually gave me small gifts (necktie from 2001 and the shirt from 2003 are still with me and I am using them, In fact, I am now wearing Apichat’s gift –the zebra kind shirt- ). It is nice to be remembered but I don’t remember I ever felt sad If I am not remembered. I usually forget my birthday if nobody reminds me!
My question is how we can remember other people’s birthdays? Or in other way: What are the variables, which make us to remember some friends’ birthdays and to forget other friends’ birthday? Love (I can not forget J’s birthday both because I love her and I am afraid to be punished!!! , friendship (I don’t remember any friend’s birthday other than Uli and Julie. I remember them because their birthdays are easy to remember. One is one month before J and the other one can be calculated by an exponential function of digits of her age in the time we know each other), family bounds (I don’t really remember my eldest brother’s birthday, must be in May) , work (no way!) , seeing each other everyday (not for me! I don’t really mind if I don’t know the people’s names in my office. Should I? ), physically being closed (sometimes) , having similar hobbies (not for me), having an easy-to-remember birthday (as Uli and Julie), having a similar birthday (a student in Rayong has a birth day one day after my birthday. So whenever my birthday comes, next day I send her a birthday message.)
So the question is still there? Are we behaving selfish when we remember others’ birthdays? We remember those we feel responsible or we love and we forget the others because we do not care! We do not care for some friends we work together, we do not care for the people we play sports etc… Not because we are so busy! It should not take long time to have a birthday calendar (I am planning to have a birthday calendar for last 10 years! But no success so far! ) Beside this, those who are remembered for their birthday, may not remember my birthday! So should I take it offensive? I think many people do it! Like little children! You did not remember my birthday so I will not remember yours! Ha ha ha!
This birthday story goes forever… It might be better to stop here… I am hungry now… need to eat…
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder