re: #224 Talking Point Detective

The tendency to personalize “mistakes” is a huge obstacle to learning.

When I began working as a teacher, I trained as a Montessori teacher. Montessori methodology employs the use of concrete materials to introduce abstract concepts. There are these fantastic materials, for example, that give you a concrete model for cubing a trinomial.

Anyway, during the training process for Montessori methodology, I would watch trainees actually go through the steps from learning a concept in the concrete form to learning the abstract corollary. Many would invariably say, “Oh, now I realize I can do math.”

Why? Because when they were kids they were mistakenly shown math in an abstract way - for example an algorithm for multiplying - without being given a way to understand it in a concrete form first. That methodology runs counter to the epistemology of how most people learn. But they would see that some other kids didn’t need to understand the concrete forms first - kids who wouldn’t say, “But why do you want me to cross out the eight and “carry” the one?,” or maybe kids who intuitively would understand how the abstract concept reflected the concrete task. Anyway, when kids who follow a very natural process of learning see other kids able to do a task because it was taught in a way that actually didn’t model most people’s learning processes, they would turn the “mistakes” inward, and say “Well, I can’t do math.”

And this process goes on for year after year. It is heart-breaking to watch when kids’ self-esteem is so battered by schooling. You can see it in their eyes. You start to talk about some learning task, and the get this blank look. They stop thinking about the words you’re saying, and they begin thinking to themselves “Oh, another occasion where I’m going to be exposed as someone who can’t do math.”

I’m a Montessori Parent. The 5 children my son “graduated” with from “6th” grade in Montessori (6-9 classroom), all have gone to different schools and are in high school now. ALL stand-out from the current peers in the area of self-confidence. Peer pressure isn’t an issue.

I tell people that the Montessori child is comfortable in his own skin.

Understanding why testing and grades are important? That was a battle for a couple of of them in Junior High. They seem to have adjusted tho.