Fractionally Challenged

Fractionally Challenged

Back in the days when dinosaurs walked the earth I learned about fractions. I didn’t have any major problems with them. They made sense, mostly, and I added and subtracted without too much strain on my part. But aside from occasionally cutting a pie to feed a group, I hadn’t thought about them since. I mean, who does? Percentages are concepts that you use everyday but fractions tend to stay shyly in the background of our lives. So when I learned that I would have to teach them this year I was worried. Understanding a subject does not equate to teaching it well. We’ve all had genius professors who couldn’t teach their way out of a paper bag.

I was determined that my class would truly understand the concept because I’ve learned, through painful experience, that learning by rote doesn’t prepare you for the unexpected and never teaches you to think. I began my lesson planning with one of the best math teachers I know, my husband, Steve. But even he wasn’t sure which approach to use since my students had very little math experience and most of it was bad. But luckily the next day I discovered the toys that were hiding in my classroom closet.

There was an entire collection of colorful, magnetic, fraction pies, strips, blocks and squares, all illustrating the various ways you could divide a whole. I played with them, experimenting with the different ways to take them apart and put them back together, and knew that they would be the key to helping my class understand fractions. I excitedly planned two weeks of lesson plans but when I told my class that we would begin studying fractions the next week they looked like deer caught in the headlights.

“Oh God, fractions!” Deanna wailed. “I hate fractions, they’re evil!”
I tried to assure her that we would go slowly and then I showed her the toys that we would be playing with, but she was still skeptical. Toys, shmoys, fractions had never been fun and no magnetic pies would make them fun now. It was then that I got the idea to bring am apple pie to the first class so we could divide and eat at the same time. I would make them understand this even if it meant gaining weight in the process!

The best laid plans. That Friday I received a phone call from my director telling me that the Blackstone school and center would be closed the next week due to swine flu. Now you know that you’re nuts when, instead of being ecstatic at the thought of an unexpected week’s paid vacation, you immediately go into cranky mode. It was a matter of timing. I kept thinking of all the things that I had to finish by the end of the year, the lost math lessons and the fact that I would just plain miss going to work. I was also not thrilled at having to call my entire school to tell them not to come in the next week but to be sure and come back the week after. I just knew that thanks to this enforced time-out I would lose all my students for the rest of the year.

And I was right. On Monday five people showed up for class. It didn’t help that we also had that Wednesday off (the infamous Bunker Hill holiday) and that Thursday was graduation. Everyone just assumed that school was out for the summer. I wanted to scream, but what’s a girl to do? I decided to teach the damn fractions to whoever came in and hope that a few hours of instruction would stick with them all summer. I am ever the optimist.

Surprisingly most of my class showed up. Though I hadn’t brought my pie I was stupid enough to tell them about it. They kept ribbing me about the dessert that I owed them throughout the lesson. I promised to bring one next year. Then I took out all my colorful playthings, took a deep breath and began. First we talked about what they knew or remembered about fractions and how they used them everyday without thinking about it. I explained that it was just another form of division and that no matter how many pieces you cut a pie into, it was still one pie when you put it back together again, just like Humpty Dumpty.

We moved magnetic strips around the board, drew pictures, folded paper, shaded squares, we did everything but eat pie. And then in the middle of the lesson the most wonderful moment of my teaching career happened. Deanna, a big smile on her face, blurted out, “This is fun!” I nearly cried. And thank goodness my, glass-is-half-empty-self did not push itself to the front of the class and say, “Yeah well it’s fun now but wait till we start adding and dividing these suckers!” I simply smiled and enjoyed the moment.

There are times in life when beyond all reason everything is truly perfect. And that day in a South End, GED classroom, it was. I just hope that I can hold onto it for the cold February mornings when everyone is tired, cranky and determined not to learn a thing. I’ll take it out, dust it off and sprinkle it around like teaching fairy dust. And then maybe we’ll have some pie.