Day 51
For one year, 365 days, this blog will address the Common Core Standards from the perspective of creating an alternate, ambient learning environment for math. Ambient is defined as “existing or present on all sides, an all-encompassing atmosphere.” And ambient music is defined as: “Quiet and relaxing with melodies that repeat many times.
Why ambient? A math teaching style that’s whole and all encompassing, with themes that repeat many times through the years, is most likely to be effective and successful. Today’s post will be brief.
I am in overload mode, having traded my Mac G5 desktop for a Macbook. So here I sit with the laptop on my lap in totally unfamiliar territory, never having used one. I’m so non-techie, it’s a wonder I can navigate the cyber world at all. But I do think it’s nicer, sitting here on our comfiest couch rather than scrunched up at my desk on the desktop!
As for embracing the new and unfamiliar, I came across this quote from Erich Fromm the other day. “The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.”
It strikes the same chord for me as Rudolf Steiner saying that good teaching is like standing in the rain without an umbrella. What I’ve taken away from this is that the best teaching happens when the teacher is vulnerable to the learning process. Nothing inspires a child more than to see a teacher’s or parent’s hard-won striving.
In light of this, we might consider that all the testing and teaching to the test that’s been so prevalent in our schools of late flies in the face of these wonderfully hopeful thoughts.
Tomorrow I revamp my office to accommodate the new space and configuration, and then move on to business as usual. Not to depart too terribly far from the blog theme though, I will leave with a small gallery of form drawings to set the stage. These four drawings represent the progression from Grades 1 to 4.
Hoping this sneak preview has whetted your appetite for more Grade 1. And remember that true knowledge ensues in an environment dedicated to imaginative, creative knowing, where student and teacher alike surrender to the ensuing of that knowledge as a worthy goal. See you tomorrow for form drawing and Common Core geometry!
