Chapter
Six: The Basics
In the sixth chapter of Zull’s text
entitled The Basics Zull discusses
how our brains understand symbols. Zull
opens the chapter (after his narrative introduction) with the sentence,
“Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the human brain is its ability to
represent ourselves, our world, our images, our feelings, and our experiences
with symbols and combinations of symbols” (Zull 142) According to Zull the two
most apparent examples of the brain’s ability to do this are in the form of
math and language, believing both to be symbolic systems. Zull feels one of the
primary goals or “basic” goals of education are to help students develop their
understanding of these two symbolic systems.
I believe this is true too. While reading the two most important
sections for me were: How to Fall into the Trap on page 151 and An Alternative:
Math through Experience on page 159.
Zull opens the chapter with an
account of a freshman class whose understanding of DNA is greatly
exaggerated. Metaphorically speaking the
class can talk the talk of DNA but they cannot walk the walk. They have no true
understanding of the nature of DNA. Zull circles back to this story in the
section, How to Fall into the Trap. As a middle school teacher I found this
section to be particularly powerful because I can relate to the idea of
students “knowing” something without mastering it. Or as Zull points out, they
are learning it without images. They are not connecting it to anything and
therefore students are not finding meaning. For me, this is most evident with
grammar. A lot of advanced grammatical concepts fall in the 7th and
8th grade state standards. In this case I am saying advanced in the
sense of moving away from basic parts of speech and into clauses, phrases,
gerunds etc. I try very hard to teach grammar as “organically” as possible by
trying to embed grammar lessons into the students writing, and by working on
different grammatical issues with different student groups based on their
needs; but, I can still sense the dread in my students when we discuss grammar.
By the end of the units, I feel my students have the basic understanding.
However, as previously mentioned, I have students two years in a row. So much
like Zull’s freshman when we circle back to a topic the next year my students
can talk about it, but still make the same mistakes.
This past year I had an 8th
grader who wrote in a very boring style. All of his sentences were structurally
the same, either simple or sometimes compound with a basic conjunction. In 7th
grade I introduce and discuss dependent clauses. When I asked him what they
were as an 8th grader he could give me a pretty close definition. So
I tried to have him show me a dependent clause in his writing. He struggled to find any, and furthermore he
struggled to add any into his writing. I grew frustrated because I felt like I
had covered the material. In the end, he
was able to add some sentence variation to his writing, but still needed
prompting to do so. While reading this chapter of Zull, I could not help but
draw parallels from his freshman students to my middle school students. They
could not connect to the grammatical concepts because they were not able to
create images and meaning to the symbols.
While writing this and while reading the chapter I
find myself wondering how can I create symbols when teaching grammar in a way
that is meaningful to my students in order for them to understand grammar. Do they see grammar rules as something
“silly” that is done in English class, but everyone can read and write, so do
they really have to know what a gerund is?
A goal I have for myself this year is to figure out ways to make grammar
meaningful for my students.
On a more personal note, I found myself reminiscing
about my undergrad years when reading the section, “An Alternative: Math
Through Experience.” Through high
school, and most of college I had been a liberal arts person. I gravitated
towards History and English as opposed to Math and Science. In fact, I viewed
them as classes you had to take in order to graduate. I survived them, I
memorized the formulas I needed in order to pass the course. I was not invested in them. This changed when I got to my junior year in
college. I needed one more math credit to fulfill my general education credits.
I asked around and I find out that Astronomy in the summer was easy and it
counted as both a math and a science credit. I always liked the idea of space,
so, I enrolled. An interesting thing happened. I actually enjoyed it. We had to calculate the weight of stars and
planets and guess cosmic bodies flight patterns etc. For whatever reason, I
found that I really enjoyed the math. It was crazy (I know not professional) to
me how I could figure out the distance between Earth and other planets. I did
not think it was possible for me to do this because I always hated math. But
yet, here I was figuring out the density of other planets and what that would
mean to an astronaut exploring the planet.
I mention this because I wonder what would have been
different in my life if I had a math or science teacher in high school, or
middle school that encouraged this kind of math exploration. I could have very
well ended up working as a math teacher, or even an engineer of some kind. When
Zull says, “The most effective education comes from the natural interests and
instincts of each learner, developed through his or her own experiences” (159). By which Zull means the joy of learning. I
enjoyed learning about these big math problems because they meant something to
me. In high school I did not enjoy learning about a small math problem from a
book because I could not connect to it. It was a task that needed completed to
graduate, not a ticket to explore the cosmos.
This chapter really focused on Zull’s premise of
moving the brain to the mind. How we as educators really need to be specific in
our approaches and how we need to remember how our students’ brains work. I liked how at the end of the chapter Zull
reminds the reader (presumably educators) to remember the impact of images and
how the use of them can bring joy to learners.
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