Manual math teacher David Singer

The other day I was listening to a group of students argue about a problem I had presented them with during Discourse Time, an assessment strategy used in our class where students engage in mathematical debate.

The problem itself was fairly simple, though deriving a solution certainly was not. Asking if the population of Mexico could one day surpass that of the United States, the students were provided with sets of data for both countries. If you graph the data from 1900 to present it appears, in fact, possible that if the two data sets follow their patterns there could be a shift in who has the greater population.

As the students continued to argue I watched Ta’lor sit quietly and listen. She seemed completely disengaged from the conversation.

“Look at it guys…come on! How can it not pass the U.S…it’s growing at a way faster rate!” raved Mahkena. 

“Are you kidding me? How can a linear trend possibly pass something that’s exponential,” chimed in Laken. “That doesn’t make any sense.” 

“Look at my equations (pointing to a paper filled with messy mathematical computations),” interrupted Saul…”can’t you see that my predictions with the models show that it’s not possible…the numbers don’t lie…”

Using data modeling, extrapolating, graphing, and general knowledge, the students were engaged in an amazing conversation around a real problem.  While I was witnessing such great engagement, I couldn’t help but feel as though I had failed one of my students. 

Why wasn’t Ta’lor involved? Why wasn’t anyone else in the conversation eliciting her opinion? The other students at the table continued to argue for a few more minutes as the clock drew closer to the end of class.  Watching them convince one another of their perspectives was like witnessing a mini-lesson in Darwinism.

Finally, a conclusion had been reached and the lion was ready to share. “I think we’ve come to a consensus on our decision Mr. Singer,” Laken proudly stated. “ Mexico has to…”

“WAIT!” exclaimed Ta’lor. “What if we’re dealing with a logistic growth model…that would throw your whole theory off because exponential growth continues increasing forever, but that’s not possible for populations…I think we need to consider logistic growth models…don’t you?”

Who’s the king of the jungle now?

The story I’ve just shared from my classroom provides one possible answer to the simple, yet complex question:  “How did the year go?” When I look back and analyze our first year at the newly re-opened Manual High School, it’s hard to say just how we did. Sifting through the data from our Benchmark algebra exams I found another piece of insight to the difficult question: Luis.

Luis’ benchmark assessment scores skyrocketed from a 33 % in September to a 67 % in May. The amazing part about his growth is that the two tests weren’t even close to similar in their difficulty (the later enveloping a much greater breadth of content).  Beyond his scores, Luis evolved from a quiet, unsure kid to a proud, intelligent and vocal young man.  Everyday he walks into class, looks at me, and says “who’s the smartest kid in the world?” He’s not lacking humility…he’s just proud to be smart and strives everyday to get even smarter.

If Ta’lor and Luis aren’t enough case studies to determine how we did this past year then let’s consider Danielle. After missing 126 class periods through the end of February we decided to do something about it – not that we hadn’t tried in the past.

Meeting with her brother, our principal, instructional coach and another teacher, we had a conversation with Danielle.  “What do you want to do in life?” We posed the question hoping that it would give us some insight into why she was missing so much class.

“I want to be a hair stylist.” Danielle was excited about her future career and it was clear that she was having trouble making the connection between cutting hair and attending school. A colleague of mine, Darren, brought up the point that you have some options when it comes to the world of beauty. You can cut hair and own your own business, really making it in the world and becoming financially successful, or you can rent a slot in a hair salon and just get by. 

We quickly struck a deal. If Danielle attended school every day for the remainder of the year we would provide her with her very first paying client, our instructional coach, Mario Giardiello. In addition, we’d pay her the going rate for a hair cut, approximately $14.99, and she could cut his hair in front of the whole school during morning meeting.

A few days ago Mario received his first ever Mohawk in front of the entire student body. When Mario got home that evening, I’ve been told by inside sources, his three little girls were somewhat petrified and sadly questioned “what happened to Daddy?”

Danielle missed just one day in the last three months of school.

How did the year go? It’s a difficult question to answer. We have some amazing success stories (Ta’lor, Luis and Danielle to name a few); and looking at our students as a whole I feel confident in saying that they are engaged learners who are in the midst of finding a purpose behind education. 

Breaking the case on each of our students isn’t as simple as a one-hour “Law and Order” episode.  Some of them we have yet to discover even a clue as to how to change their outlook and motivation.  Others are just starting to open up as our “lawyers” continue to “interrogate” them.

The bottom line: a majority of out students have shown growth both socially and academically. They are maturing into young people of whom we can all be proud. It’s clear, to this teacher at least, that the school we’re creating has a lot do with it.

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