Teaching Elementary, My Dear Watson

24 - New Year

24

New Year

Monday, January 2

"Hey Graciela, I haven't seen you in a year." Kevin smiled at his leader.

Graciela looked puzzled, but then her face lit up. "Oh, I get it. The last time you saw me was in 1977!"

Kevin grinned again. My jokes hit different levels. It's fun when I tell one that I know wouldn't work with a younger student, or that would be too simple for adults. It's like she earned her understanding of it. Just right.

At lunch, under a cool and cloudless sky, Graciela led her teammates to victory in basketball.

In math, Kevin tried something new. "Speeding in a car is against the law, but I'm gonna encourage you to do so in arithmetic. Starting today, we're beginning what I call Speed Math. Daily, we'll practice simple problems in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. This will help make more complicated math easier, so you don't work as long on the problems. I'm going to time you to see how fast you can solve them. But I will grade you on how hard you try, not on who is the best. Then on Fridays, we will help each other. The fastest students will be leaders in groups where you will use flashcards to memorize arithmetic problems where you need extra repetition. We won't take that much time each day, but we'll do it all consistently. The idea is to practice often to get better, just like in sports."

The kids nodded, open to the idea. Kevin passed out sheets with 100 problems, all the combinations of adding the digits from zero to nine. 8 + 5, 3 + 2, etc. So 0 was the lowest answer, and 18 was the biggest. His goal was to help them get as automatic as possible, so that adding larger sums, like 596 + 1877, would be easier. The papers began upside down on each desk, and each student had two pencils with erasers ready.

Kevin wrote a huge 1, 2, 3, and 4 in different colors on the front board. "If you finish before we stop at five minutes, raise your hand. No talking at all during this. You will see next to each minute's number up here that I will record your time on the board. I'll point to you so you know what time to write. For example, if Brendan finishes at 4:23, you will see below the 4 here that I will write 23, and I'll point to Brendan. So he would record 4:23. Questions?" No one raised a hand. Kevin looked up at the clock as the second hand approached 12. "On your mark, get set, go."

Brendan finished at 2:55, Graciela was second at 3:27. Several others finished before five minutes was up, even Art at 4:49. About half the class wasn't done when Kevin told them to stop. "No worries. I'll help you figure out what your time would be if we kept going. Now we're going to trade and grade." They did so. Kevin explained that he would read the answers aloud, one row at a time. At first, it went slowly, but then they got the hang of it. "Now, count the number correct and write it at the top. Later, I'll figure out how many were wrong or undone, and will multiply by three. That's because someone who finished all in exactly five minutes took 300 seconds to do so, exactly three seconds per problem. I'll be adding the estimated time to the total."

Kids nodded. By the end, everyone had a score. Kevin walked around, monitoring and helping as needed, then collected the papers. He would record them after school. He had his first baseline results.

Tuesday, January 3

The day was cold and overcast, almost foreshadowing the boys' loss in basketball. But some had been practicing their skills over vacation. Kevin could see that they were dribbling more with their heads up, meaning they had better control of the ball by feel. And several times they passed immediately after rebounding. They got some good shots by hitting the open teammate. Didn't always score, but they had three more baskets than if they played one-on-one and dribbled all the time. Big improvement. And they noticed, thanking each other for assists by pointing to acknowledge a good pass, or high-fiving each other.