Calculators or Problem Solvers

Our printers are notorious for getting jammed.  Lights start blinking, beeping noises are blaring, and papers are stuck in places that teachers never knew existed.  Unfortunately, there are teachers on my staff that just leave the machines jammed.  They walk away from the difficult situation without telling anyone.  (Does this sound familiar to anyone?)  Of course, you can picture the next teacher to come in only to be frustrated by a disabled machine.  I, on the other hand, have learned how each machine works and can (most times) find the source of trouble and fix it.  And now I’m so good at it that other teachers call me to fix it (rather than waiting on the office staff or doing it themselves).

In doing this, I’ve always thought that I was being self-sufficient.  I like being independent and not having to rely on the front office for help.  They have enough to do.  I like to figure things out on my own.

And then something sparked in my brain.  Am I just proud to be self-sufficient or was it me that I liked solving problems?

And as this revelation consumed me, I found another situation that needed my problem-solving abilities.  My husband recently got us a Keurig (we are a little bit late on this bandwagon).  I’m a big tea drinker so I thought that it would save us money if I would bring my own cup of tea to work.

Here’s the situation.  I have one of my travel mugs and I’m given the choice of 6, 8, 10, or 12 ounces.  I felt like Goldilocks of Keurigs with all my choices.  I tried 12 ounces, and it wasn’t enough to fill the mug.  I tried 10 and 6 ounces, and it was too much.  16 ounces didn’t give me enough room for my honey and cream.  I finally figured out that filling the mug with 6 and 8 ounces amounted to the perfect volume of tea (with enough room for honey and cream). 

Why am I telling you about these menial everyday tasks? Well….it got me thinking about a few questions that relate to my paper and tea situations.    I have seen too many times that students want the answer and just want to move on.  I have seen that students who are “good” at math are the calculator kids.  They can do their algorithms and answer level 1 type questions with a quickness that can too often turn the progressing students sour to math.  However….  how many our students want to tinker with math?  How many of them don’t mind trying out different methods to see what sticks?  Do we as teachers need to take the time to raise their endurance when it comes to solving problems?  How do we get our students to have patience in working through a problem? Do we give the students space to workshop their ideas?  

Stay tuned and I’ll share what I’ve come up with.