Natural Maths – Ann Baker
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” Alvin Toffler
I like this quote. The idea of unlearning and relearning is important. If we aren’t prepared to do this we are doing ourselves and our students a huge disservice. If we continue to do things purely because it’s ‘the way we’ve always done it’, we are missing out on learning opportunities for ourselves and taking away the same opportunities for our students.
This week, I was faced with some new learning that challenged everything I knew about teaching and learning maths. The session, run by Ann Baker, unpacked her ‘secret code’ and showed me a whole new way of thinking that just made sense. Using the strategies she showed, allows students (and perhaps we teachers) to see HOW and WHY numbers work. It clearly shows the relationships between numbers while challenging the deeply ingrained processes that we all grew up with. It’s not to say that the ‘old’ processes are completely wrong, but they are not the only way, and they don’t show us the all important HOW and WHY.
As teachers, we know that professional development can be a bit ‘hit and miss’. I walked away from Friday’s session feeling completely challenged, wondering how I had gotten this far without knowing this stuff. I walked away wondering how we get this information to teachers before they hit the classroom. I walked away wondering where to start in helping my students to ‘unlearn’ and ‘relearn’. I also walked away with a new set of tools, feeling ready to start making changes.
As a teacher, it a horrible feeling to come to a realisation that your ‘best practice’ isn’t really good enough, but surely it’s worse to not realise it and continue to think that you have nothing to learn?
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