Right Technique, Wrong Subject

I read this post by a maths school teacher, Brooke Powers titled “Who or What Broke My Kids?”. After teaching the basics of probability, she went into a school book prescribed exercise where probabilities were expressed as decimals, fractions, percentages and words (“likely”, “improbable”) and the students had to sort them in ascending order of probability. So what happened?

“It turned into a ten minute nightmare where I was asked no less than 52 times if their answers were “right”.”

And why did that happen?

“My students truly believe for some reason that math is about combining whatever numbers you can in whatever method that seems about right to get one “answer” and then call it a day…Today they were given a task with no real correct answer and they lost it.”

Highly irritated, Powers called for a break:

“We talked about the need for them to stop worrying about if I think their answer is right and to start worrying about whether or not they thought their answer was right.”

Then she split the class into 2 groups, had them arrange the probabilities as they thought fit and finally asked them to compare their rankings:

“Their goal was to look for similarities and differences and explain their rationale about why they placed controversial cards where they did.  I heard some of most logical and articulate arguments we have had all year.”

Great way to teach, I thought. But something didn’t “fit”: encouraging a discussion and asking kids to justify their stance is great but the subject on which she applied that was the one subject that is, well, totally objective: maths! After all, isn’t maths the one subject where what Calvin says below is always true?

Everything in maths is indeed “either pure, sweet truth or a vile, contemptible lie”.

I do hope, however, that Powers’ approach is used in the other subjects…