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Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the chance to do so.
Doris Lessing
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I find it quite ironic, considering the content of this blog, that on the proud completion of my writing I frustratingly discovered that I had forgotten the password to my old blog site. (A blog that I used almost daily for 6 months solid.) Yep, password was completely gone from memory and Google kept sending the new password reset code to my old UK phone number…(Thank you Google!)…..or asking me ridiculous security questions that I had not a bloody clue how to answer. Like: What exact date did you set up this blog? or failing that …. what was the exact date you set up your gmail account?? ( I mean seriously?…does ANYONE actually remember stuff like that?) After 3 hours of trawling through cyber space attempting to find a solution to my problem, (annoyed as hell- I was not a hacker this was MY blog) – I was l left with no doubt. It was indeed a sign. It was time to start a new blog. The journey of course is still continuing …just with a little bit more awareness and a lot more acceptance.
For those loyal few that followed my old blog you will no doubt know that I haven’t written in ages. It has occurred to me that my flashes of inspiration seem to arise roughly in 2 year cycles. I am acutely aware that if I simply learnt the art of saying less, more times, then I could actually be a proper blogger. But allas, when I am on a roll, I can’t shut up. This we all know. I genuinely can’t help it – I have a lot to say….and it all tends to come out at once 😉 Maybe the “less is more “ skill is one I have yet to master, but then again maybe not.
The last 2 years have indeed been an interesting journey. When I moved back to South Africa from London and I couldn’t find a teaching job, I decided, with a lot encouragement from my big brother Lloyd, to start working for myself doing extra maths lessons. This subsequently led to me taking over an Auditory Processing and Language Development program, from a teacher friend of mine who was semi-retiring. (Bizarrely enough I met this women, my first day out, at a school I was canvasing for my new business.) I never got any work at that school but built up a lovely friendship with her and a year later she handed over her lifes work- asking me to help with her work load at two private schools in PE. I have no doubt enjoyed this experience immensely and I have gained a lot of understanding about auditory memory and how children learn. While I am, no doubt, incredibly grateful for this experience, (especially that it got me into such a great private school like Woodridge ) I sometimes feel like my heart isn’t in it.
Instead I have surprisingly discovered that my real passion in life, for now, has become working with children struggling with maths. In London I was trained up as a Numbers Count teacher– it was a new government incentive aimed at helping those little-lies who struggled with the Foundation Stage basics of Maths – it was indeed awesome. I worked with only 6 children at a time….every single day for 3 months. I was blown away with the changes in these kids when they finally started getting things, started to make little connections themselves and just basically believe that they “could” do maths.
So things have slowly been picking up this year, as I seem to be acquiring more and more maths students. The upshot of this has been me starting to notice a pattern with certain students who all have very similar problems.
- A complete inability to grasp any number sense. While I can teach them skills to recognize and order individual numbers they have little concept of the actual value of a number.
- These children have absolutely no visual concept of a number line in their minds.
- Counting , especially backwards is an absolutely foreign concept for them.
- They fluctuate from being able to do one thing absolutely perfectly one day, to being completely clueless as to what to do the next.
- While most kids naturally pick up patterns in numbers and how they work these kids- bless them – just don’t see them. They literally have to be taught these patterns, and even then they struggle to retain this information. I.e. 2 + 2 = 4 therefore 20 + 20 = 40 therefor 200 + 200 = 400.
- They also then struggle to use what they have learnt out of context. Hence they find applying this maths to everyday problems incredibly hard.
- But most notably with all these kids comes anxiety. A huge maths block/fear that they can’t do maths and that they are stupid…..this is the hardest thing to shift- and my most rewarding challenge.
So yes I love the daily challenges of my job, and that every child is different. I am indeed never bored at work. Unfortunately this dream job has come with its own “personal challenges” which is why I am writing this blog.
My training in the UK was to work with Foundation Stage maths. This I can do well. More and more I am being asked to work with older children. A lot of them are children who I have done Auditory Processing work with already….so it’s kind of just progressed to their parents asking me to help them with their maths. About 4 weeks ago I agreed to work with a Grade 7 child, let’s call him Matthew. During my work with Matthew, last year, I was faced with a child with huge language and memory problems. I don’t think I have ever met a child who struggled to retain information as much as he does. I spent almost the whole year going over the same stuff with him, in different ways. How he was learning and retaining anything new from class was beyond me. It has to be said that Matthew is, without doubt, one of the most polite, sweet and dedicated students I have ever had the privilege of working with. What he lacks in academic skills he makes up with, in friendliness and genuine charm. Even with his language difficulties he is a born leader and loved by staff and pupils alike. I have all the time in the world for Matthew. Last year was for me, however, a constant struggle. Having to reteach the same thing over and over again, as a teacher, does at times make you wonder if you are actually doing your job properly? At times, I sincerely doubted I was even making a difference with him. But he seemed to grow in confidence and he was always eager and excited to work with me so I came to accept that I must have been making some impact on him. It was a huge lesson for me as a teacher – that patience is a virtue and that with some kids there are no quick fixes.
So when Matthews’ mum approached me in July to continue working with him, I asked his teacher what he needed help with the most and the answer was, most definitely his maths. Mmmmm Great! I love teaching maths!! Grade 7 maths….I had never ever taught before but I literally thought to myself….”how hard could it really be.” (Are we not taught as kids never to think those words?) After all I knew first hand how much this child struggles…. this would be a synch! I was a great maths teacher…no challenge to big. Indeed.
(Something about “pride” …and “falls?”) Unfortunately I very soon discovered how wrong I was. And all of a sudden I was left reeling with :
“What the heeeeeeelllll were you thinking Gayle!!!! “
You see here in lies my problem, which I had completely forgotten (or completely ignored) until this point. Subconsciously …….I hate maths…..there…I said it: I really do hate it! Maths at times fills my entire body with absolute dread. I can literally go cold if someone asks me to do a mental maths sum. Work out change quickly? …….money and measurement conversations = me wanting to to cry! I am mortified by how much I struggle to even remember basic bonds. 5+3, 7-3 they just don’t just come naturally to me….I have to mentally count.(I am ashamed to admit at times I still want to use my fingers.) I have always struggled with maths…..even copying down a list of numbers causes me a little anxiety as I continually have to check and recheck what I have written. Times tables? Aaaaarg hate them! (Who invented those things?) I seriously can’t remember phone numbers (I still don’t know my landline number- and I have been home almost two and a half years.) It took me over 3 months to actually learn my mobile number. And that’s only because I eventually I stuck it all over my bathroom until I knew it! (I was determined) I have all my pins saved, and please don’t ask me what my ID number is 750609????? ….or is the 750906…???? (It’s a huge embarrassment anytime someone asks me for it….and I get “that” look.- or sometimes if I’m lucky a sarcastic comment) I have never been able to remember dates not even my families and friends birthday dates. (I mean seriously I have only been celebrating them for the last 38 years….how many years exactly, does it take to remember a fixed date? It doesn’t move damit!!)
Case in point: When I went for my UK passport “interview” 5 years ago the man asked me the following questions:
When is your mums birthday? “Ummmm….I’m not sure it was last week….I missed it.”
When were your parents married? “Ummm….ummmmm…it was last week sometime, as well…I remembered that ” (ever so proud)
How long have they been married? “Ummmm……. I don’t know…let me see….(sat trying to work it out but was so nervous I eventually gave up and just guessed) It was wrong.
(Exasperation) What year did you arrive in London? ……Ummmmm……a while a go….Ive been here 8 years….I think……yeh about 8 years ago…….roughly….. Oh you want the actual year? I haven’t a clue. I think I was 24…can you do the maths please”
The whole point of the interview is so that they can ascertain that you are indeed who you say you are….I barely got a single question right. (Except maybe my name, address and birthdate ….Im pretty sure I got all those right.) Kind man just shook his head and said....”Young lady..no one who was faking would NOT know as much as you don’t” He granted me my passport.(clearly the British are not to worried about polluting their gene pool…. I personally was relieved.) His parting comment as I left the room was “I sincerely hope you don’t teach maths?” ( I had just started with the Numbers Count that year…..I said nothing. )
Point Proven – Rant continues – And while we are on embarrassments – No I don’t know the difference between my left and right hand either. I, of course, have developed ways of getting around this but the fact of the matter is it doesn’t come naturally. If someone says “turn left” my internal response is brief panic: “Umm which left is that exactly?” And let’s not even get me started on reading maps and word problems.
Woooooord problems….oh my hat!!!…. they do my head in sometimes – it takes me time to actually visualize what I’m being asked. Seriously what are they asking me to do? And whhhhhyyy would you want me to do that? Isn’t this why God gave us calculators?.…unless I write stuff down when doing sums I forget within seconds what I have just done. I just struggle to remember basic stuff and the feeling at times can be absolutely mortifying. The absolute worse part of it all is the anxiety that comes with this…..it’s not this bloody hard to remember this! Is it?
Now I know the most logical question after reading all that would be: How the hell did I, of all people, land up helping children with Maths problems? I would be lying if I didn’t admit that, at times I have pondered this one myself. This would NEVER have been the path I choose for my life….but somehow it has chosen me. Of course on a deeper level I do know the answer to this one. I know why I’m great at my job….quite simply put : I feel their pain oh so clearly. I get it when they look at me with those panic stricken eyes that just seem to cry ” I can’t do this!!” I see through the nodding that they understand something when, in actuality, I know they still don’t have a freak’n clue. I relate to their disappointment at just not getting it and their embarrassment of forgetting what they have already been taught. And I’m patient. And as mentioned- determined. I am quite happy to work with them, for however long it takes, until they do get it.
In fairness to myself… I feel I have come a long way in facing my maths demons these last 5 years. Studying life coaching help a lot as I started to become more aware of myself and my own “perceived limitations.”
I also contained my own maths struggles well with the little ones….I mean after all this is only basic maths. (My secret was safe. No one needed to know how bad I really was.) The last couple of weeks since I have started working with Matthew have been soooo hard. On my initial assessment of him this child literally blew me away as he seemed to know all his bonds and tables off by heart and whizzed through the multiplication problems faster than I could mark. I was highly embarrassed to say the least. (Mortified). All of a sudden I felt like I have been thrown back into the maths pit….with all those numbers that scare the living bejeezers out of me. I kept wondering why I had agreed to this (and how quickly could I get out of it??) At least working with the little ones I didn’t have to face this vast gaping hole in my maths knowledge. Two weeks ago I was doing area with him. In his Grade 7 test which he asked me to work through with him was a “word problem” question which involved cm squared “conversions”. (Noooooooooo!!) I didn’t have a clue how to do that one. I asked a teacher friend of mine if he wouldn’t mind helping me with it…..I begged him to be patient with me! He was. He tried his best. I still didn’t get it…he might as well have been speaking the Greek language of Conversions. (It brought back vague recollections of Lloyd trying so desperately to help me grasp some Maths concepts) After a couple of attempts I nodded dutifully that I had got it….recognition on his face noted that I still had no clue….but maybe he shouldn’t push it, as I was close to tears. Of course it was one question in a whole paper but it might as well have been the ‘whole paper’ I hadn’t understood. I came away filled with such complete and utter shame….I’m a maths teacher and I can’t do maths.
My secret was now out! And it left me feeling incredibly exposed. As it so happened at the same time as all off this was going on I had started working with a new child, in Grade 3 – lets call her Danny. Danny is an intelligent, chatty child with an above average IQ who yet again has so many of these similar symptoms I mentioned above. But with her what’s most notably worrying is her understanding of money. She has none. It’s like she is completely incapable of understanding the value of coins. We have consequently spent two weeks, 3 times a week working on this concept. She literally could not remember or grasp that there are 100c in a rand….no matter how many different ways I tried to break it up for her or visually represent it for her. This Thursday we had a small break through when I yet again asked her how many cents in a rand and I finally got the answer I was looking for – “100c!” Hallelujah!!!! I was ecstatic, she was ecstatic…it was a great moment. Unfortunately I am however, well aware that she has now simply learnt the answer to that question, that we have been working on, parrot fashion. Danny still has absolutely no concept of the value of 100c or R10 or R100.
Danny’s maths struggle is a complete puzzle to me. Why is this not computing with her? My heart literally goes out to her. I have to find a way to teach this, so that she will actually understand it. My online search for new methods of teaching has subsequently lead me to start reading a lot about dyscalculia. In laymens terms dyscalculia is the maths version of dyslexia. It is a deep-rooted inability to understand and undertake mathematical calculations. It amazed me to read all of the above mentioned problems that I am experiencing with these children, including Danny, are all symptoms of dyscalculia. While this condition is moderately well
known and (somewhat) accepted in the UK, it is relatively unspoken of and undiagnosed in South African schools. (Well Port Elizabeth Schools at least.) The biggest problem being that, as of yet there has been so little research into it. It is however estimated, that approximately 6% of the population is affected by this. Roughly translating to about 2 children per class. In my book That’s bloody HUGE! Why are these children falling through the cracks? Teachers with over 30 kids in their class are frustrated and at a loss as to how they can actually help these kids, with little understanding about this condition their most obvious conclusion is often to blame the parents lack of involvement- “They need to work more at home”. Parents on the other-hand are also frustrated, as they themselves are overwhelmed with their child’s struggles and “blame” the perceived bad teachers. “We send them to school to learn- why isnt my child learning? This is the teacher’s job! ” Its indeed a vicious cycle and blame is rife….more often than not these poor kids are caught in the crossfire of all this blame. These kids get labelled as having low IQ, being lazy, never listening, not concentrating enough and being unmotivated or day dreamers. They are non of these.
These children are just number blind. What amazes me more is how so many of these kids that I’m working with have coped….with such huge deficits in their understanding…no wonder they are filled with so much anxiety. It’s hard continually “pretending” you know what’s going on. Sadly as many of these children get older, they will begin to disengage with education, they will begin to feel “I can’t do it; I’m going to fail, so why should I even try?”
Tony Atwood is the founder of the Dyscalculia centre in London and has subsequently written a number of articles on this topic. According to him there are 5 specific types of dyscalculia, all of varying degrees. Type 4, was the most interesting for me. These people tend not to be dyscalculic in the strictest sense of the word as their problems do not arise from a genetic malfunction. They do however display symptoms of dyscalculia because they have a problem with their long term, short term and “working memory” . Educational psychologist Tracy Alloway, who is an expert on the “working memory” explains this term simply as:
Short Term memory = remember
Working memory = remember and work
She likens it to being the brains postid note. Essentially “Working memory” is the ability to hold and manipulate information in the mind over short periods of time….long enough to allow the child to complete a task. It’s not just about remembering those facts it’s also about using and applying them to their work. E.g. A child uses this skill when doing math calculations. They have to hold onto numbers while working with them.
In his research Tony Atwood typifies these type four dyscalculics as individuals that may not have been recognized as having memory problems at school and may have subsequently developed a mental block against maths. Type 4 students are recognized by their inability to remember sequences of numbers, (such as their telephone number), because of their difficulty in finding a way to move sequences of numbers from the short-term to the long-term memory. Thus, numbers and sequences get lost, in that big black hole I like to call the memory. As a result any calculation involving two sets of numbers in which one conclusion has to be remembered while the second is calculated, is liable to be highly problematic. (Mmmmm you don’t say.)
So I had a huge aha moment this week when it dawned on me, rather quickly that just maybe, I wasn’t as stupid or lazy as I have always subconsciously felt. And that maybe struggling this much to retain basic stuff wasn’t “normal” (even for me) or simply just a symptom of me being “bad at maths” ….. maybe it was a little more. ….
So what now? Where exactly does this leave a ” maybe mildly non – dyscalculic special needs maths teacher with a rusty working memory?” in a modern Port Elizabethan society?
Umm, well she will definitely WILL not be taking on any more Grade 7 pupils for Maths. On careful consideration I have decided to continue working with Matthew…..his faith in me as a teacher is worth more than the slight anxiety I feel at times. Of course this means I spend about an hour and a half a week just planning his lesson…..making sure I understand everything. I also accept that what he really needs, more than anything, is someone patient to go over practical formulas and concepts with him – repeatedly. Someone who won’t get cross when he can’t remember. This I can do. On the odd occasion that a question might come up that I don’t know the answer to – I am always honest with him. I then take it away as my homework…determined to find the answer for his next lesson. I can’t help but feel gratitude to Matthew ….he is indeed making me a better teacher …forcing me to step further into this abyss of numbers called mathematics.
And finally I guess I am left with infinitely more compassion and understanding for these children that struggle, so with this……and with more patience to stay on the areas that they struggle with, that much longer. I feel immensely driven to learn even more about dyscalculia and the working memory. I feel inspired to find new ways to help my kids overcome these difficulties- I feel excited and passionate. Its a great place to be! 😉 I am also strangely enough overwhelmed, for the first time ever, with acceptance of myself and my own many mathematical flaws. I no longer feel the desperate need to hide them, I feel less critical of myself and more eager to focus on my strengths. I may never be a great mathematician but I do believe I can contribute to building up a generation of children that don’t hate maths.
This I can most definitely do.
Having come to the end of this blog my first reaction is – what an amazing daughter I have and how much I have let her down by not understanding her more and being more patient with her when I have a natural Maths brain!!!! Well done my darling daughter – may you go from strength to strength in your chosen field of helping children in life – bless you.
Not at all mummy dearest! All you and dad ever wanted me to do was my best. ….which is all I have ever done!;-) Great Advice I think!
Love you
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