Completing this Fulbright affords me the time to read relevant and interesting work by other teachers and scholars or teacher/scholars…or maybe I shouldn’t try to make the distinction between the two because teachers ARE scholars. Anyway, I digress.

Because teaching is so demanding, I don’t always have the time to read what other educators are writing about regarding teaching and learning. I read what I can from practitioner journals like Mathematics Teacher, but even then I usually scan the title to see if they directly relate the classes that I am currently teaching. As a math department at NCP, we have made a more concerted effort to read math-ed related books as part of our PLC and they provide great fodder for discussion, even if what we read is not always applicable. This year, we are reading Jo Boaler’s Mathematical Mindsets, which I had read last summer. Her research and conclusions for math teaching closely align to our department’s vision for teaching and learning. We were only a few chapters in before I left, but the rest of the department continues to read it and process it in my absence.

I picked up a few books at AST’s library last week and am reading them as quickly as I can (which is not very fast) before I have to return them in two weeks. One is Motivation Matters and Interest Counts: Fostering Engagement in Mathematics by James Middleton and Amanda Jensen. Just one chapter into the book and I was reminded about what I love about teaching. Part of a teacher’s job is to motivate her students. There’s more to that than merely using encouraging words. The kids of mathematical tasks we present to our students, the routines, activities, interactions, and overall culture of the classroom impacts student motivation. Students’ past experiences and future expectations impact their motivations. Their school and home environments, including their peers (of course), impact their motivations.

The messages that teachers give students about mathematics greatly impact’s student interest in math and their motivation to learn it and to learn its relevance in their lives. When the goal of doing mathematics is to get the right answer, a lot of students can be turned off if they can’t do that easily. Instead, the goals of a mathematics classroom can be communicating and building knowledge as a community. I aim for that in all of my classes, but I’m sure that I fall short some days. I don’t give up, however. I have seen some evidence of the community building and communication goals in math classrooms here and I hope to see much more.

I’m also looking for that kind of learning in the graduate class I attend weekly, which is a curriculum theory class, not a math class. One night after this class, on our walk to the bus stop, I asked a classmate if the participation in the class was typical compared to the other classes she has (or is) taking at NIE. I wanted to know if students participate in the same manner (which is not very much) when the teacher asks a question. That class participation is essential for the goal community building – no matter the subject. (I probably participate more than others and I am ever vigilant of my status as a foreigner. I don’t want to come off as a know-it-all westerner, but there comes a point when the professor asks a question and I can hear the proverbial crickets in the room and it forces me to raise my hand to contribute.) My classmate was confused by question. She clarified, asking whether “ability level” of the students was consistent across her classes. I was not referring to ability at all. I merely wanted to know if students were more comfortable participating and offering their insights in other classes, compared to the one that we took together. This quick conversation resonated with me and what I have been seeing in classes. Apparently, she was equating participation with ability, which is too often the case in many mathematics classrooms. Only the smart kids speak up. I strive to make sure that ability is not correlated with participation and I continue to gather resources that can help me build a summer curriculum which can do that.

I came to Singapore to learn in their schools, from actual people. I have learned a great deal about their school system through my being here. Not all of what I learned is applicable to my project, but the context of my learning is important to my project. I’ve learned more than I could ever learn by merely reading about the schools online or in books. Much of what I have learned has come through conversations with teachers and other educators. A main feature of the system is the ‘streaming’ that occurs after grade 6, when students take the PSLE, Primary School Leaving Exam. It’s even more high-stakes than Chicago’s Selective Enrollment Exam for high schools, but I can relate on some levels. After selecting their top 6 choices of secondary schools, a student’s PSLE score determines both where they are admitted and to what stream: Express – they complete secondary school in 4 years, pass O-level exams and move on to Junior College; Normal Academic – they complete the curriculum in 5 years and move on to Poly-technical Schools; or Normal Technical – they must pass the N-level exams and move on to vocational schools. A student’s future career path is mostly determined by the end of 6th grade. This streaming was started several years ago in response to high dropout rates. It did a great deal to curb the dropout rates and keep kids in school until at least age 16. Now the system has added more flexibility to the streaming with Subject Based Banding, which allows students to take some subjects outside of their stream. This is relatively new strategy needs to be analyzed as it is in its first or second year of implementation for some schools.

As I dig more into my project, I’m reading a lot, but I’m talking even more to teachers, lead teachers, master teachers, curriculum developers, principals, assistant principals, my faculty advisory, my NIE professor, my classmates, and my fellow Fulbrighters. I’m working to analyze and synthesize all my learning into my own project and into this blog. This is kind of learning outside of reading messy work, but it matters, so I’m going to keep at it.