math is metaphor

 Conversation with a friend who was too tired to go this route, but led to some interesting thoughts of mine.

Discussing math, which she hates, and I have come to like. Can't do it, still suck at it, but from a theoretical standpoint, math has become pretty cool. I wish I'd understood a few things about math when I was younger:

• Numbers are just representational. They don't actually exist. Sort of like time, calendars, and morals. They are things we invented and live by, but they don't actually exist in real life. Numbers aren't actual things, they represent things.

• Because numbers simply are representations, they are much more malleable than I believed when I was younger. I believed that numbers were hard concrete things that required ridiculous steps that I didn't understand in order to solve problems that had no basis in life. They were just things that had to be done, either the right way or wrong way, and for some reason my grades relied on them. Sure, maybe I would use this stuff when I went to the store, and grew up to have to figure out stocks or something, and buy a house, but other than that, these school math problems had little bearing on life. you solve the problem correctly, showing your work, or you don't and everybody gets mad at you. That was my experience with math. No wonder I hated it! But numbers are just representations of things. And that realization opened up a whole world of what math could be used for.

• Math is metaphor. Actually, math puts numerical representations to metaphorical things. I like metaphor. I like the bible for its amazing metaphors. Once I realized this, I realized that life is actually mostly mathematical. Relationships with people, the way we serendipitously have coincidences happen, the way we think and operate - it all actually is mathematical formula. We may not know the formula, may not be able to solve it, but if we were able to see the really really big picture, we could potentially put numbers to it all and solve big human behavior questions. Also, math is HARD BECAUSE math puts numbers to metaphor. Metaphors aren't meant to be quantified, they're meant to be felt and experienced. Math tries to force metaphor onto paper and stay still long enough to be solved. But that's the game of it. That's the fun of it. That's how we got to the moon, because people were willing to figure out what those numbers were that could make it possible.

• Math is a big logic puzzle. I like logic puzzles. I'm not great at them all of the time, but I enjoy them. Math - especially higher math - combines philosophy with science and puts it into a logic puzzle with representational numbers and letters. Then the ppl who really like doing that stuff figure it out.

I live in the world of taking feelings and experiences and putting words, movement, and action to them. I live in the world of theatre, music, and literature. I take the metaphor and expand them so they become visible, secondary metaphors through the experiences of fictional characters, music, and dance. But that's because that's where my brain sits. I'm happy there, it's natural there, and not everyone can do it. Mathematicians will take those same things and put numbers to them. It's happy for them, it's natural, and not everyone can do it.

Now I no longer fear math, and in fact actually love it. I had to step away from the judgmental world of school and fear of my parent's reactions to my grades. I agree basic math should be taught so that children can do the going to the store, buying things, buying a house, and all the basic things a human in this society needs to understand. But I also believe that the magic of math should be taught much, much younger. The philosophy of math should be brought into the very beginning of teaching. The way that numbers can be manipulated, can shift and change. They're not the hard-against-the-wall things that I thought they were as a kid when I couldn't do long division. Boy, I did not understand long division at all. I followed the formula, but the "why" of it was an absolute mystery to me. And what's crazy, I thought I knew the "why". I thought it was because math was something that somebody just had to understand in order to be a functional human being. Again, hard wall.

I didn't realize that math was actually filled with curiosity, and mistakes, and people trying to put reason to the things they see. I didn't realize that even the most basic multiplication formula wasn't invented just to torture kids, it was somebody realizing that there must be a faster way to do this thing they were struggling to do - and they figured it out. They figured out a faster way to multiply. An easier way to conceive of these representational numbers, so that they could then go on to grasp bigger things.

Amazing. Because I do that with words. And with theatre. I find better ways to bring ideas to life, to let them ring and register with audiences in ways that they haven't experienced before. To change people.

Now. I sucked at math. I still suck at math. I used to hate math because I sucked at it. Now I like it even though I suck at it. I tell kids when I teach them math (which isn't often) that it really is okay to not know the answer, or to be struggling with the problem. That math is actually about the process of figuring it out. The cool thing with math is at the end of the day, especially simpler math, you do get to know if your process worked or not. In life, we don't get that same luxury.

The kids who will be good at math need to be exposed to it because they will find it a natural home. The others? I wish we could infuse a little more magic and wonder and curiosity into teaching math, because that's what it is. Yeah, you still gotta know basic addition subtraction multiplication and whatnot. You may or may not need to ever know how to calculate a triangle's edges.

But math has some degree of magic in it. And after all, it's the process that counts.

Here's an unsolved math problem for the math geeks:

Good luck with that one.

10 solutions to a better public school

10 solutions to a better public school

Oh, the Trump administration. One ceaseless horror after another. And now, with Cuomo partnering with Bill Gates to "rethink education" - which makes me roll my eyes ceaselessly at another politician (I'm a firm believer in politicians doing their jobs, and I have good faith in most of them) thinking he understands education. And to recruit Bill Gates? As someone to re-envision education? What? Why? Where are his credentials, man! Where's his experience?

Listen. Teachers have been told how to educate children since the role of "teacher" was invented. It's one of the nuisances of being a teacher - that everyone thinks they know better than you, when you are doing everything you can to be better than your own self. I suppose every job has "those people" who think they know it better than you - but I'd love to see the average politician dictate to lawyers how to do their job, or bankers, or oil company owners. Yet - because raising children is a community effort, telling teachers what to do (smacks of misogyny, doesn't it?) seems to be the basis for a lot of educational decrees.

Also, I'm not opposed to the concept of using someone with the interest in education and the commitment to fund educational efforts, and to engage their thinking in some new ways so that technology can respond to teacher's needs. Key: respond to teacher's needs. Not re-imagine education, but respond to teacher's needs in the classroom. Teachers who already know what\s needed, and who already have envisioned a better educational future.

As a teaching artist, NOT a classroom teacher, but also as a substitute teacher in the general education population, AND as a substitute in a not-for-profit institution for behaviorally challenged youth, I DO feel I have a broad spectrum of experience from which to draw an educated opinion.

And Bill Gates, Trump, and Devos are NOT the answer. Of course, I wasn't a particularly large fan of Obama's educational thinking (although I approve of enhancing science learning for everyone - as long as it inherently includes the arts), and I was vocally opposed to GW's approach with his no child left behind except, of course, nearly every child.

When I first wrote this article, it was in response to the hiring of Devos. So I wrote the following, and since it still holds true, I'm leaving it intact:

From a federal level, we should be focused on public schools. Education for everybody. Charters can and often do remove children for whom education is not easy - children with behavioral, health, mental, physical, emotional, developmental, and also absolutely understandable learning challenges - children who have never been in a school setting before, children who have autism, children who have trauma, children who are in poverty. These all result in behaviors that charter schools can select to not tolerate. Public schools cannot turn anybody away. They are for EVERYBODY and the quality of our public schools will speak to the quality of education in our country.

We will always have private schools, charter schools, other places children can go to be educated in the way a parent decides is most valuable to them. BUT - public school. This is the greatest system we can hope for - education for every single American citizen.

So why would we ever promote a system that undercuts what already is a behemoth, but still a truly necessary offering for American children?

We actually have really good public schools, contrary to public opinion. We teach in ways that other countries don't. We used to. We have been doing less of it during No Child Left Behind, and are slowly finding our way back through Common Core. I had hoped we would keep moving forward. But... alas, that is not the case for the next four years.

Below is my list of what is critically needed for all schools. It is a simple list. It is NOT EASY. but it is simple. and it ALL has to do with funding.

1) Lower classroom size
Every study that I've seen cites that smaller class sizes impact learning. I know this practically, you know this practically. It's a simple solution. But not easy to achieve unless you also:

2) hire more teachers
Not just teachers for numbers. Teachers of quality. Teachers of forward-thinking educational systems. And administrations that support this kind of thinking and teaching.

3) Hire more special education teachers, aides, and those with skills working with emotionally, behaviorally, mentally, developmentally challenged youth
Youth are struggling. Especially city youth, especially rural youth. I've taught in both settings. I KNOW what I'm talking about. If you are anywhere in an inner-city you know that poverty-stricken youth are more likely to be trauma-stricken youth, and therefore vulnerable to losing precious education opportunities due to behavior and other reasons.

4) Hire more language and speech teachers to assist youth for whom English is a second or third or fourth language.

5) Provide more high quality after school opportunities - most after school programs are a hot mess, and this I can say I KNOW because I've been there, and 90% of it is staffing the after school programs properly.

6) Keep attendance officers to make sure youth come to school, but not in a punishable way - but in a way that explores why they are not attending. Could be simple, such as not having clean clothes, or an emergency at home, or perhaps education isn't valued at home and there needs to be an outside force.

7) In areas of high poverty, pay teachers MORE, hire teachers familiar with the area and the student's families. Make sure they have access to the additional supports they need.

8) Offer parent training opportunities - how to help their children with homework, to set schedules and to assist them in their educational goals. Parents are not teachers, as the current pandemic has taught us. Or, if they are, parents are learning that teaching one's own students is vastly different than teaching other parent's children. Yet, parents often want to assist, and find themselves flummoxed by new techniques new technologies, and new strategies that make learning successful. Parent training has worked in some urban settings - for those parents who take advantage of it. More opportunities, and especially using digital platforms to reach parents at home, can greatly enhance student success. It goes without saying that we need to...

9) make sure kids have recess. and arts. and theater. and dance. and music. and sports. SOOOO many of these programs have been cut. Kids need three times as much recess during the day - especially younger ones - than they are getting. Dance, theatre, visual and performing arts, music - these are the backbone of our cultural heritage and they are critical for our youth, for sciences, for humanities, for every aspect of building an innovative and thriving country. So not only put those classes back, but invest in them - and the rest will absolutely follow. THESE THINGS SHOULD BE STANDARD FOR EVERY CHILD.

10) Make teaching a financially forward-thinking, incentivized career where teachers truly compete with each other for the best jobs - and schools, in general, have options for the best and brightest educators. Unions that protect teachers, and MUST protect teachers, cannot be undermined in this - but there also must be good protections for the students against teachers who are NOT good quality. I have seen the best, and I have seen the worst - in the same school, same grade, same principal, same everything. One amazing. one a travesty. There must be some way to protect students from the travesty without punishing the amazing. This is the only one that is not simple. But it is a MUST.

Do these sound like no brainers? Exactly.

But this stuff has to be funded, and it has to be funded from the community. From taxpayers. IF we value an educated country (which I'm questioning if we value this right now). This is where we need to focus our money so that EVERY child has a great education. Our future literally depends on it.