My background,
as a mathematician, is in pure mathematics, more precisely Functional
Analysis. I did my undergraduate and MS
degrees in Bucharest, Romania, before the fall of communism. Those were hard times for Eastern
Europe. Nevertheless, the educational
system was one of the strong points, one of the few factors that kept the
society alive. I, myself, was also
lucky enough to have especially very good math teachers, both in elementary
school and in high school. So that by
the 11th grade I was already decided about my career: I would study
mathematics, specialize in some branch of analysis, and do research for the
rest of my life! This seemed to be a
good choice, best fit not only for my analytic mind and shy personality, but
for the specific situation in Romania of those years. We were all trying to
escape from reality in some way: art, family life, small groups of friends,
risky political jokes, and sometimes… careers that seemed to have nothing to do
with real life! Together with my
colleagues, I used to think that mathematics was offering us the freedom we
didn’t have at that time.
But one fact,
thought of as a useless hardship at the moment, changed my views
drastically. After earning my MS, as a
condition of starting employment with a prestigious research institute, I had
to teach math, for two years, in a high school of the state’s choice. Those
years I taught math to students that were all academically unprepared, many
lacked education and some had no clear moral values. I will not describe my disappointment, frustration, anger,
revolt, and then again frustration…
What amazed me at the time was: I really enjoyed teaching those
children!
There, in that
high school at the bottom of the system, I learned that teaching, in general,
and teaching math, even math, as separated from reality as I considered it, can
be a powerful tool of impact on young people’s life. For some, few I hope, this sense of power seems to develop into
tyranny, a way of serving their thirst for domination. For me, as for most people who find
themselves in this position, to share all I knew and was useful to them seemed
to be the only way.
At the same
time, I started to accept that math was not as separated from reality as I
thought I wanted it to be! My students were responding better to associations
of math with things they were experiencing directly every day: from fractions
as portions of a monetary unit, to geometric shapes representing household
objects and to mathematical relationships compared to physical interactions in
nature. Math came into being by
creating abstract ideas from objects, shapes, facts from real life, and it is
all so natural that, at some level, we use this connection for pedagogical
purpose.
The even more
important connection between teaching (in general, and math in its own way) and
life is the opportunity of educating at the same time as instructing. By “instruction”, I mean the mere effective
transmission of knowledge and technical skills. Young as I was when I was a high school teacher, somehow I was
able to share with my students some of my moral, ethical and philosophical
views. Especially for those groups of
disadvantaged children, it seemed to make a big difference.
It also made a
big difference for me! Among other
things, it gave me the courage to leave my native Romania and come to the
United States to work on my doctorate!
My teaching philosophy made me adapt very easily to a new educational
environment. Over the years, I
accumulated a lot more experience: as a PhD student, a postdoctoral fellow, a
visiting faculty, and even more since I came to Houston Baptist
University. I learned some from my
colleagues, and I learned some from my students. Nevertheless, my original intuitive understanding of teaching
math “in the context” and “with a wider purpose” is still a guiding principle
in my professional life.
Since I
started teaching at Houston Baptist University as an assistant professor of
mathematics, I had the opportunity to teach a variety of classes, from the
lowest level to the highest we have in our BS program. One reason for my choice of HBU was that,
it being a Christian university, my efforts to educate my students in the
spirit of Judeo–Christian values were to be more appreciated.
I want to make
myself clear about the way I approach this matter. Most of the time, with all students, I try to “teach by
example”. As Jesus showed us, people
are more tempted to follow what you do than what you say. I consider very
important the way we conduct ourselves in front of our students as educators,
with other instructors, as colleagues, and in society in general as citizens. I also try to “sneak in”, when appropriate,
an anecdote or joke that is related to our class subject, but is also of some
general educational benefit. If I had
to explain the reason for why this method seems to work, I’d say because young
people more than older adults are very sensitive to details and some are
somehow reluctant to “obey the imposed rule”.
A more
organized approach I take in some lower level classes, like Finite Math
(required of Business students) and especially in Mathematics for Critical Thinking. This last class was designed to satisfy the
mathematics part of the general education requirements for our
undergraduates. It is an alternative to
College Algebra and it was planned to be specifically useful for people who
would benefit more from the analytic mind set provided by the rigorous exercise
of logic than from trying to struggle, one more time, with formulas they never
liked, nor understood, nor will they ever need.
I want to talk
about this class because it turned out to give me the biggest pedagogical
satisfaction yet. The way the material
is selected (logic, set theory, combinatorics probability and statistics &
mathematics of finance), one can cover topics of interest even for the non-mathematically
inclined and it provides at the same time the opportunity to open students’
minds to critical, analytic thinking, to show them the connections of math with
real life, to break the almost-hatred of math they had been harboring (since
the 6th grade!), and, finally, to exercise their newly acquired
talent to “do math” – a terrifying subject nit long ago! - and do it with some pleasure!
This coming Spring quarter, I will teach again (for the fifth time) Math for Critical Thinking. I am especially interested in studying better ways (style, methods, subjects) to make this class even more enjoyable, more useful, and fitting in with the mission of our university to “prepare students for meaningful lives and work, and for the service to God and all the people of the world”.
I hope that,
by the time the workshop meets, I will be able to report on my progress
concerning this class. Another project
that could yield some ideas worth reporting is teaching Introduction to Math
Concepts, this spring, as well, for the first time in our department. Yet another matter that I am concerned with
is the preparation of future math teachers.
I am just finishing now a senior seminar for math education majors and I
intend to assess the results.