May Q 450 Blog

During the meeting I think one concept that I got was that nature is not only a collection of "things" but they are actual living bodies that are the same as us. We humans are usually thinking of them as 'it' but actually they're not! every plant has a life, and humans are only using them as objects. This has to stop.... and we need to learn from the Indigenous people in respecting the nature and every living creature around us.  They also mentioned how when they attend to and respect the plants, they grow better. It is counterintuitive in the science area because science describes the plants' growth in a scientific point of view (sunshine, water, etc, but not 'care' or 'respect')  Yet, I do have the personal experience with communicating to the plants (okay, I do sound a bit crazy now) and I do sense the difference between a healthy, natural plant and a plant with a lot of pollution (mainly from  human involvement , noises from the traffic, et...

  In our video today Jo Boaler said that math is not a “gift” but it’s something everyone could learn well. The growth mindset she mentioned is crucial to the learning of mathematics because when kids have a growth mindset, they would have more persistence, determination to keep going and encouragement by other’s success. Personally, I also have the fixed mindset because I always thought that smartness is important when learning mathematical concepts. However, there may be other ways to look at it and it did occur to me in university that even when you’re ‘smart’, if you don’t put enough effort into learning, you might just turn out ‘dumb’. Nonetheless, I still believe that the factor of IQ is crucial when solving higher level mathematical problems. Some students simply can’t get it... or maybe they didn't try hard enough. “Multi-dimensional math” is another important concept she brought up.   As she asserted, when we have inquiry-based mathematics in a classroom, achievemen...

This article does ‘speak to me’ as a new teacher candidate. No matter which time period, teachers always face the decision of being “mechanically directed by others; by impulse, tradition, and authority” or not. Being reflective or unreflective is our own choice, despite of the outside environment and the time period. All schools have routines and rules that teachers are expected to follow, and teachers may tend to forget that there are other possibilities. It is hard to oppose authority when you are in a system, and most people just follow the rules.   This article gave me the idea that we should be able to examine the rationales that underlie what is taken to be natural and right. Also, we need to consider carefully about the consequences to which our actions lead. We need to be reflective of our actions and take responsibility for that. Furthermore, we should be able to question some traditional practices of the school which might cause discrimination. However, I believe tha...

After watching Frank’s video, I see that sometimes I’d have to “go where adolescents are in all their anguish, and their craziness and all their hormones raging” instead of simply going against their wishes and personalities. Maybe sometimes I could “let them vent” instead of blocking their sentiments as a teacher because that wouldn’t work and they might not listen at all. It’s always hard for educators to handle the kids’ sentiments against learning, but maybe that’s because their approaches are not totally correct. Frank always had the humility to “learn from kids” and he said, “if you’re teaching and you’re not learning, you’ll not teach it”. I do resonate with that because as an educator, one always has to acquire better skills and approaches. We do have to learn a lot and transform ourselves in the process. If we don’t learn more about the kids, about their interests and beliefs, about their sentiments and tendencies, we might totally fail to connect with them, which leads to fai...

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