Scott Collegiate

Yesterday was my first day volunteering in a math class at Scott Collegiate. I was helping out in a Math 10 and 20 class...and it was very interesting!!
If you don't know anything about the classes at Scott, I will try and enlighten you.
They work on the quarter system, instead of having 2 semesters like most schools they have 4 of them. In this system each class is 2 hours long, because it lasts half the time. How things generally work in a math class, is the kids are giving their contracts and outline for the year and they have certain things to complete...they work at their own pace and get help when they need it.
So there is very little classroom "at the board" teaching. Instead when a student is ready to move on to a new section, you give them a "mini" lesson on that section...ranging from 5-10 minutes depending upon the student.

It was really exciting to be in there yesterday and give numerous "mini" lessons to different kids, and start to build that trusting relationship where they can start to ask me for help.

I am really thrilled about working here for the next while, because I would love to teach there in the fall next semester...and there is a possibility that they'll be needing a math teacher either part-time or full. So I am hoping that working there and getting to know some teachers, the students, and the admin, will help me to get a position there if it opens up.

Now, aside from my personal aspirations of this blog, I have another thing that I would like to bring up.
In society and in education we are to "educate" our students...me being in math I am to teach them how to factor before they are able to graduate. Now, I am DEFINITELY not saying that math in unimportant, but I am thinking that in this school, and with this particular clientale that they need other types of education. They need to know about money, about consumerism so that they can go to a store and buy groceries on a budget, and make sure that they are getting the right amount of change, and so many other applications. To be realistic, there are a lot of students (and not just at this school) who are not math minded or even school minded and therefore will not be moving on to any form of post-secondary education...so I pose the question to anyone out there...why do we not teach these children, the skills that they need to be a contributing member of our society? and why don't we teach them the social skills they'll need? how to retain a job? how to get a job?
Why isn't anyone doing ANYTHING about this??

Wow, nother point...this brings me to a point at other schools, any school has children like this, and what kind of help are doing for them, by forcing them to factor and read Shakespeare, or anything else, when what they really need is to learn how to function in our society...?? Does this not make sense to be a goal of our education system, so we can eliminate welfare and unemployment rates as much as possible, by giving the upcoming generations the skills to function in society??