Field Post 2

When visiting Shaker Heights Middle School, the first class I observed was a math class. The students were learning about probability, using the exemplar of rolling a dice. The teacher had them use mental math instead of calculators, then had them share and explain how they got their answers. Unlike some teachers, this teacher let the kids share wrong answers then have them verbally figure out where they went wrong in their process of thinking. She never gave the students the answer, but instead had them retrace their knowledge to get to the right answer by themselves. This showed me how teachers are not meant to give kids the "right" answer, but we are supposed to let them solve the problem in their own way, even if they fail the first few times.
The second class I visited was an English/Language Arts class. In the class the students all were provided a personal computer and were working on a paper. The teacher explained to me that they were writing stories on whatever they wanted to write about, but the goal was to go through all the steps of writing a paper. This teacher encouraged the kids to write about their interests and to be creative. When one of the girls was struggling, the teacher told her to continue writing even if it did not make sense. She said encouraged them to write down whatever ideas they had even if it was not grammatically correct. Again this teacher was more focused on the kids going through the process and being creative, despite the mistakes they were making.
Observing these two classes truly showed me how teachers need to encourage the kids to think on their own and to think outside of the box. If the teachers achieve this, then they can assist the student into using their own problem solving techniques to find the correct answer. Observing Shaker showed me how teachers should not limits the students problem solving by making them think that there is only one way to solve a problem, because in reality everyone can solve the same problem in a different way and still have the same outcome. I believe this is the bridge Shaker Middle School is trying to build; A bridge from telling the kids the right answer, to making the kids teach themselves different ways to solve the problem. This is a skill that overall will help the students later in life. Life is so complex that people need to know that there are several different perspectives of every problem in our world, and we must all be open to those different perspectives in order to solve the problems. This is similar to how Ayers uses the metaphor of "building bridges" such as the story he uses with the turtle. The teacher in that story encouraged the kids to think differently to figure out a way to make a physical bridge for the turtle. This symbolizes the transition of the kids building a bridge to a new way of thinking or solving problems. This can also be seen as a bridge of maturing, which ties in with the story of Zayd who was also "building a bridge" to adulthood or maturity. He approached this differently by going on a quest to seek adulthood. Overall, building bridges to maturity is a main theme written by Ayers and seen in the classrooms at Shaker Heights.