Encouraging
At the teahouse again, I find myself sitting across from a table of three people in their mid-twenties who are almost certainly algebra teachers. They appear to be planning in great detail how to teach their students a unit on functions—a list of necessary concepts, the order in which to present them, how to test for understanding, different ways of explaining functions for differently-styled learners, extra-credit assignments, and, of course, how all this will be tested on the TAKS.
I think one of them is a returning teacher and the other two are new, or at least new to teaching algebra, but all three appear to be competent in their subject and to care a good deal. [I was worried a bit when I saw one guy’s copy of Algebra for Dummies, but now I surmise that he’s using it to find examples of ways to explain these concepts simply.] Their students are very lucky. This gives me hope for the future. Huzzah.
Tags: teaching