My first person of the week is a teacher who has made an incredible difference to the students of Harlem, Kay Toliver. One of the requirements for my course work in “Methods for Teaching SEI and ESL” was to watch a DVD entitled “Good morning Miss Toliver.” Kay Tolliver teaches math to junior high school students in Harlem. I was won over by her approach to teaching, as were her students. Kay is a smart funny energetic woman who brings her excitement about math and learning to her students. In turn, her students are excited about learning and are very engaged in the process. She is very attached to her students and they in turn are clearly in love with her. Miss Toliver has a way of making math fun. She teaches by real life hands on experiences. One of the fun activities they did was to make a math trail. The purpose was to show her students that math is everywhere they go. The class went on a field trip of their neighborhood with a Polaroid camera and looked for math. They would take pictures and write a math problem about what they saw. For example one of the questions was when you sit on the bench look at the tree right in front of you what kind of angles do you see. After they had done this, they returned to their class and made a math trail that another class could the read follow the directions look at the pictures arrive at the destinations and answer the math questions. When it was fished, it was a very nice book and the children had learned a lot about math and how they actually do use it in the real world. I wish I had had a teacher like Miss Toliver when I was in school and I hope that some day I can bring that same level of enthusiasm to my students and have them as engage in learning as she is able to do, she is truly an inspiration to her students as well as other teachers and those of us who are learning to be teachers. Thank you Miss Toliver.
2 comments:
Thank God for Teachers like this.
Inner-city teachers and teachers in poor rural areas have more freedom, because a lot of the time, they are not saddled with curriculum ideas and programs that the district paid obnoxious amounts of money for. I often envy teachers that are allowed to walk into their classrooms and not have to worry about the next BIG idea sent down from the board of education.
My district requires that all of the courses on the high school level give the exact same assessments as each other. The problem with that is, for example, in the courses I teach, there are two of us at my school and five at the other. Guess whose ideas win? They aren't always the best ideas, either.
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