Digital Diversions: Keeping the Focus on the Art of Teaching in the Mathematics Classroom

Childhood Education, 2005 by Griffin, John C

Technology will probably never bring us closer to understanding the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual leverage exerted by weak self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1997), "Self-belief does not necessarily ensure success, but self-disbelief assuredly spawns failure" (p. 77). In his view, the single most powerful means of enhancing a student's self-efficacy in the classroom is through repeated experiences of guided mastery. If I see myself succeed by virtue of my own efforts, then I am more likely to cultivate a sense of genuine competency. If we dream of teaching students who will someday emerge from our classrooms into the world as confident, educated young adults, we must grasp the wisdom of first understanding them as human beings, unobstructed by digital fog. The following story, drawn from my experiences as a doctoral student, illustrates, albeit extremely, the impact of encountering teachers who perpetually see themselves and their students "through a glass darkly."

I am a freshly minted Ph.D. whose area of specialization was educational leadership. Despite my quantitative inclinations (I am a math teacher, after all), I elected to conduct a qualitative investigation because, in my humble opinion, the essence of learning is impervious to statistical analysis; it is an affair of the heart. My dissertation topic pertained to the experience of elementary teachers who were contending with depressed levels of mathematics self-efficacy. I was interested in what it was like to be a teacher who feared mathematics, and even believed wholeheartedly that he or she was somehow intrinsically defective and so inherently unable to master this often intimidating subject.

I interviewed eight teachers from diverse backgrounds. On this particular day, I had scheduled an interview with a 49-year-old special education teacher, whom I will call Amy. Amy was, at the time, a graduate student enrolled in the same university I was attending.

Amy and I met in a small study room in the library early on a Saturday morning. The library was nearly vacant, and so we were guaranteed silence and privacy. After the initial exchange of pleasantries, I asked her to share with me her experiences with mathematics. This is the story she shared:

You know, it's funny; I knew I had to meet you here today, so I woke up early this morning and I was thinking about it and tears came to my eyes because I had a horrible experience in math. English was easy enough, but when it came to math I just . . . couldn't get it. And she was teaching one day . . . Sister D. She stood in front of me and she wanted an answer and I just could not give it to her. She yelled and she screamed and she banged on my desk and I couldn't give her an answer. I could even feel the kids around me feelingbad for me. . . . I don't know, we sat there for a long time, she stood over me, you know it was like . . . she wore the long habits that they used to wear long ago. She had her hands under her dress and she said [pounding on the desk for effect] . . . "Give me an answer! GIVE ME AN ANSWER!!" [emphasis hers]. And I'm looking at the book and I . . . just . . . could not see the answer. The next day, there I was again, alone, and she was there again, right in front of me. And as class began, guess who she called to go to the board? Yes, me. "Go to the board!" she screamed. And it was like the movies. . . . I sat in front of the class, but when I was walking up there . . . it was the longest walk. I wrote something on the board . . . I have no idea what I wrote and she said, "see, I knew you weren't stupid." So that's my experience with math. It was horrible, absolutely horrible . . . so that's my math story. I became a teacher so that no child of mine would have . . . [that] terrifying experience.