What's Math Got to Do with It? by Jo Boaler

What's Math Got to Do with It? by Jo Boaler

Author:Jo Boaler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-04-02T16:00:00+00:00


Student Respect

When we consider the role of ability grouping and the difference it makes in students’ lives, there is another dimension besides achievement that it is critical to consider. For ability grouping not only limits opportunities, it influences the sorts of people our children will become. As students spend thousands of hours in their mathematics classrooms, they do not only learn about mathematics, they learn about ways of acting and ways of being.

Mathematics classrooms influence, to a high and regrettable degree, the confidence students have in their own intelligence. This is unfortunate both because math classrooms often treat children harshly but also because we know that there are many forms of intelligence, and math classrooms tend to value only one. In addition to the power that math classrooms have to build or crush children’s confidence, they also influence to a large extent the ideas students develop about other people.

Through my own research I have found that students in tracked classes in American high schools not only developed ideas about their own potential, but they began to categorize others in unfortunate ways—as smart or dumb, quick or slow. Comments such as this came from students in tracked classes: “I don’t want to feel like a retard. Like if someone asks me the most basic question and I can’t do it, I don’t want to feel dumb. And I can’t stand stupid people either. Because that’s one of the things that annoy me. Like stupid people. And I don’t want to be a stupid person.”

The students who had worked in mixed-ability classes at Railside High School did not talk in these ways and they developed impressive levels of respect for each other. Any observer to the classrooms could not fail to notice the respectful ways students interacted with one another, seeming not to notice the usual dividing lines of social class, ethnicity, gender, or “ability.” The ethnic cliques that often form in multicultural schools did not form at Railside, and students talked about the ways their math classes had taught them to be respectful of different people and ideas. In learning to consider different approaches to math problems, students also learned to respect different ways of thinking more generally and the people making such contributions. Many of the students talked about the ways they had opened their minds and their ideas—for example:

Tanita: You got everyone’s perspective, ’cause like when you’re debating a rule or a method, you get someone else’s perspective of what they think instead of just going off your own thoughts. That’s why it was good with, like, a lot of people.

Carol: I liked it too. Most people opened up their ideas.

Undeniably, one of the goals of schools is to teach students subject knowledge and understanding, but schools also have a responsibility to teach students to be good citizens—to be people who are open-minded, thoughtful, and respectful of others who are different from themselves. The Carnegie Corporation of New York, based on a report from the Council for Adolescent Development,



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