Success

(written at the conclusion of the Baltimore City Teaching Residency summer institute (8/5/06) . It is being posted now because I wrote it at my house before I had internet.)
One of the themes of the last week of framework sessions has been establishing authority in the classroom. The pedagogical framework of the BCTR seems to circle the importance of authority in the classroom. The curriculum that has been used for the summer institute was created by Teaching for Student Achievement(TfSA). The TfSA framework relies on the interconnected nature of high impact lessons and classroom management. Both of these are presented with the teacher being the primary or even sole authority and beholder of knowledge in the classroom.

While these arenot the ideals I wish to bring to education it seems that in the current structure this what is effective in creating successful students. How success is being defined is not made clear. The overall purpose of the TfSA approach is closing the achievement gap. This is a laudable goal the TfSA/BCTR approach cannot be the only successful one out there.

I am grappling with the question of what it means to be a successful student and how the power that exists in my classroom will shape that. I will have power in the classroom, I can attempt to mask that by being polite, but that won't change the fact that I am the one in charge. That is not to say that my class can not be an empowering experience for those who enter it. My vision of a successful student is one who leaves my classroom able to think about math.

My students success will be measured by many people with many different standards. The state will be measuring their success through the Algebra High School Assessment (a passing score is required for graduation). The students families, and likely the students themselves will measure it with the grades they receive. Those are not the only ways I hope to measure my students' success.

Math literacy is what I see as success. Now this isn't concretely quantifiable. In my eyes this means that students will leave my class at the end of the year with the ability to use math in their everyday lives. I want my students to leave school not thinking of math as a burden or a chore, but rather a tool for opening doors. I want math to become an empowering force in these students lives. The skills students learn in my class must prepare them to go on to higher levels of math learning, building a foundation for college. The majority of my students may not go to college, but I don't want this to be because I have failed to provide them an opportunity the math they need to make higher education a possibility.