Hidden Field Trip Opportunities

I am a strong believer of learning happening both inside and outside of the classroom. One of the key moments that got me into teaching was a boy who disliked school and extended his dislike to learning in general. The utterance of "I hate learning" cut me deep. So if I can enhance the school experience for my students to help them enjoy and appreciate the process of learning, this would mean more to me than an endorsement with excellence. Though the grades would probably come with the intrinsic motivation. 

When Hidden Figures came out I knew it was going to be a fantastic movie filled with maths, engineering, politics and feminism. Classically me. I had just started teaching but I thought why not try and take my students, it'd be a great opportunity to take them out of the classroom for a rare maths-related field trip as well as encourage a bit of inspiration for the subject. Maybe the students would relate to the struggles faced by the title characters to prove themselves and know that what they know can not only change their lives but also make a contribution to meaningful projects around them. Or maybe they'd just be glad to be out of class.

My first organisation of the trip bombed. I had no idea of the sheer volume of little details and requirements for planning to simply go see a movie. Albeit with around 40 kids. Around the middle of the term I also felt the behaviour of my classes change as they settled in and became more comfortable. So it was rescheduled for the end of the term. A careers unit was planned alongside it and hopefully I'd see some science and math related aspirations. But as more time passes and is lost, priorities come into question and pressures of content coverage come into play.

Towards the end of the term as reports and events piled up, I felt a bit like Katherine running to use the coloured bathrooms. Now as we enter the last week of term I can feel the calm ensuing. I feel a slight sense of guilt missing another double period of maths where we could've been working on problem solving or Pythagoras. But I think the lessons delivered by this film potentially would have a deeper impact. 

Overall it was a brilliant film, very inspirational, poignant and humorous. My favourite character was Mary. Not just because she was an engineer, but I really admired the way she dealt with the problems she faced relating to her husband's opinions and getting into the courses needed for her engineering degree. My students clapped and cheered for two key moments in the film: once when Katherine calculated the landing position in the board meeting with all the white-men and the other when she received a proposal. Glad they appreciated both sides of life, the professional and personal. The way the interactions and relationships between people were portrayed in this movie was another strength. The humility brought about by the knowledge Katherine shared just filled me with awe. It really portrayed the power of the truth numbers can bring. 

I took 36 students out of school for the entire morning and brought all 36 back! The trip was a success not just because of the numbers, but also the fact that the learning experiences of my students could be extended beyond the classroom. Hopefully I took my students out of the classroom not just to get out of maths class but to help them see how far maths can take them. 

Last Friday...

Fridays are tough. I teach period 5 and 6 which has in the past felt like trying to wring soapy water out of a dry dish sponge. The previous Friday resulted in story time about my life after my Year 10 class just could not bear another trigonometry question. Instead they heard about what my teen and uni years were like. Just maybe, they learned a lesson of a different sort, or perhaps they gained a new appreciation for the unambiguity and defined functions of sin, cos and tan after the explanation of my not so traditional path into teaching.

Friday mornings are a battle with my Year 9s. The transition from the freedom of tutor class to the expectations of maths class is difficult without actually transitioning classrooms. But Friday mornings might still be more productive than Monday double periods or after lunch on Wednesdays and Thursdays. We had missed many lessons already because of things like athletics day, Teacher's only day and parent teacher interviews and I was dragging out the number topic in the hopes of providing them with the solid basic skills necessary for survival in a numeracy-based world.

I had planned a lesson to teach them the important skill of finding a percentage of a number, required in life for things like calculating discounts when you're shopping or making sure you are paying the right amount of tax. However, just before the start of the period one of my student's mentioned "Oh miss we have to go down to social studies to work on our projects". I took a deep breath. Now I understood they had a project due on Wednesday and when you have a deadline, it becomes priority. But my priority was their maths. How would they get through life without being able to calculate percentages!

After the majority of my Year 9 class went down to their social studies class. Some stayed behind ready to do some maths. But not the lesson I had planned, the activities they had been working on earlier that week. I had to give them some credit though, at least they were doing maths, just not the maths I wanted them to learn on that particular day. One of the many benefits of the digital age is accessibility, so I knew that if my students didn't learn percentages here with me today, there will be opportunities for them later if they wanted to, they could look up a YouTube video or plain old google how to do it.

I just took it in and appreciated the fact that they were doing maths. They even seemed to be enjoying themselves and helped each other with their work. There were awesome moments of them challenging each other and feelings of pride and accomplishment that comes with learning a new skill. Maths after all is not just knowing how to do the maths but being able to use it to create, invent, solve and understand. And maybe, just maybe, my students will eventually keep on wanting to do more maths, even on Friday afternoons.