Connection to the Real-World

Why do I need to know this?  If I had a dime for every time I heard this from my sixth graders I would be sitting on a beach today instead of writing this blog.  LOL!  My husband and I are currently building a home.  We are our own general contractors.  My husband owns a heating and air-conditioning company where he has worked for over 25 years.  As we were digging the basement we needed to level the land, make it the same depth, and making our basement square.  I came to a real self-realization that rainy day. I’m really good at book math and not so good at real-world math.  In fact, I’m not sure I really no what real-world math is.  I believe as teachers, we live in a “book math” world.  We try to make connections, but these connections are only as good as what we know.  In other words, we don’t know what we don’t know.  My solution: I think every teacher, specifically middle school and high school, needs to take a sabbatical and go into the real-world, roll up their sleeves, and do the work.  It is only in this way, that we will truly begin to understand the mathematical demands of the world. Teachers from the MSP grant remind me: “Bringing in real-life situations truly gives a need and desire to work with numbers.” “Help students develop their own real world problems.”