Sinclair Math.com

    Our perspectives, our experiences, our lives can all be contained in one simple concept: world-view. We view the world through these glasses, different perspectives and beliefs coloring, focusing, and blurring our perception of the world. One's world-view, or personal philosophy, is the sum and total outlook on life, the beliefs which interpret unknowns. All sensory input is filtered through our world-view. These assumptions and beliefs are more often unconscious bias than coherent logic. Sigmund Freud was the first to show how much of our conscious thought was controlled by the subconscious. Unstudied thought and bias often cause conflict, this conflict further shapes our subconscious assumptions and solidifies original bias. Behavioral scientist Jeremy Capendale has found children have formed a working knowledge of the world by age 4. This is the foundation for world-view, and it is very seldom changed. Most people by age 12 have already solidified their understanding of the world. Only through intelligent, respectful discussion and self study can one overcome natural bias and come to understand/embrace better philosophies.

    Philosophy is particularly important for educators. Since everything we do and perceive is filtered through this world-view it is integral we hold productive and helpful educational philosophies. Morris defines an educational philosophy as, General theories and ideas about the educational process, development, and achievement. All philosophy can be broken into three main categories: metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology. These areas of study are reflected by students in every classroom. Metaphysics is the study of ontology and cosmology, basically the study of existence and the properties of the material world. In teaching an emphasis on metaphysics would includes: hands-on instruction, empirical self-study, and reflection. Epistemology is the study of knowledge. Everything we believe and know is based on an original axiom. Epistemology since Kant can be simplified into the study and comparison of original axioms held by faith. Every student has different beliefs and methods of approaching truth. Epistemology can be a real barrier between constructive and instructive dialogue. Finally Axiology is the study of ethics. A classroom must be run on certain principles. These rules and their respective moral code related to varying axiological assumptions. These three lines of though have changed throughout the years. It is important to look at philosophy and history to see why certain approaches are favored today.

    The American school system got its first boost in 1785 with the passage of the Northwest Ordinance Act of 1785 and 1787. This act funded the formation of local schools with the sale of government property. However it wasn't until 1873 that schools could be funded by local taxes. With the solid establishment of the local school system in the late 1800's educators shifted their focus from establishment to methodology and educational philosophy.

    Contemporary school reform began with the cold war in the 50's. The book Teaching in America identifies this period as Sputnik. The nation united in the fear of communism, focused on educational philosophy stressing democracy and national defense. Teachers focused on basic skills, with an emphasis on math and science. By the 60's the civil rights movement flooded all other school reform. Education stressed equal learning environments and accountability. Unrest during the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War caused an increased in government regulation of schools and teachers. The natural response was massive deregulation the following decade. School boards and administrators believed in education through choice and participation. After the deregulation of the 70's it became clear students were performing below expectations. The nation responded with A Nation at Risk: The Imperatives for Educational Reform outlining a correlation between economic competitiveness and school performance. During the 90's the U.S. worked on improving its national competitive advantage by Restructuring for Excellence. This reform movement lead to No Child Left Behind. The latest round of reforms have marked a substantial change in teacher and student responsibility. Teachers are now heavily accountable to test scores and their student's proficiency. Students are subject to high stakes testing, evaluating their eligibility for advancement.

    This emphasis on accountability as led to a new and scary phenomenon: teaching for the test. Over-evaluation on test scores creates an atmosphere conducive to cheating. If nothing else, teachers are incentivized to sacrifice learning for higher test scores. I believe that this can be very damaging to the intellectual future of students. Mastery of content should be stressed above all else. High stakes testing also penalizes students who perform poorly in school but are well suited to be productive individuals in society.

    Karl Marx once said, "the production of too many useful things results in too many useless people." I would argue there is no such thing as a useless person, and every person has the potential to be productive. As the pinnacle of God's creation, every human has inherent value. However, this does not mean we are all created equal. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Teachers must understand this and teach their students accordingly. Not every child has the ability to excel in every subject, but every child has the right to engage and experience every subject. Not only do children walk into a classroom with different skills, they have different learning styles. Teachers must provide the tools of success to each student. This will incorporate many different teaching styles and many different accountability levels.

    As a future high school math teacher I believe every student has the ability to enjoy and grasp mathematic principles. These principles are based on number theory, logic, and causality. Logic and causality are core principles important to life. Number theory is important to higher education. As a high school math teacher I must teach more than math, I must teach students about life.

    Students will come into high school with very different skills and math backgrounds. Math classes through 8th grade is dominated by arithmetic and simple computational word problems. High school is a student's first exposure to core mathematical concepts. Algebra, Geometry, Number theory, Trigonometry mark an important shift in learning. Students who hated math through grade school may find high school math elegant and edifying. High school teachers really control the mathematical future of their students. Algebra, the first introduction to logic can spark an interest of a lifetime. A poor presentation at this level however, can destroy future mathematicians. This means the high school years are the most important years for math education.

    Love is your most potent weapon for motivation and control. Love of math, love for logic, and love for your students. Students respond positively to exuberance. There are three different types of learning: kinesthetic, audio, and visual. Addressing these three styles makes teaching much more challenging, and a lot more interesting. Each student learns best with one or more of these categories, however variety is important. Math is easily taught kinesthetically with geometry and worksheets. Audio and visual representations can be gleaned from lectures. However math poses its unique problems. Each student comes to class with a different understanding of number theory, logic, and causality (functions). Each student must in some capacity be brought to discover the material for themselves.

    Every student in a class room represents a future member of society. At the secondary level this is a very important observation. We must prepare our students to become productive happy members of society. No matter the personal abilities of a student, they should be prepared for the world. Each student's future success and happiness is the most important, and beautiful part of teaching in high school.

Cheerleading started in the late 19th centery as an all male activity. "Yell leaders," or cheerleaders as they are now known, serve a very specific and important role. Cheerleaders are entertainers, leaders who motivate crowd participation and interest. They lead their school in cheers and chants to inspire school spirit and loyalty. In a similar vein, teachers are also leaders responsible for motivating their students. Teachers can provide students with a plethera of information but without insperation, students will never retain that information for themselves.

To examine this role of the teacher we must first expand our understanding of data requzition and learning. A comon and simple model is the transition of data to information, then knowledge, and finally wisdom. I have expanded this model to better understand the student's and teacher's role in transforming data into knowledge.

In my model data is reveiwed through the perspective which wisdom provides, the result is translated data, i.e. information. I would argue that most teachers consider this their primary responsiblitiy. They focus on using their wisdom to create new lessons which provide students with accurate, relavent, and interesting information. In fact this is the point of having all the standards and benchmarks that we have studied. Teachers are responsible for making sure that their students retain certain levels of information. However teachers should also strive to impart into their students knowledge and wisdom.

This is where our metephor becomes powerful. The most skilled lecturer can easily transform data into well presented, digestable information. But students need someone to motivate them, to inspire them to take that information and translate it in their own life, turning it into knowledge. Information which is understood and applied to ones life, integrating facts with ones unique perspective on reality is arguable the threshold for knowledge. People are considered knowledable when they can relate information in specific personal sitiuations. Knowledge could be considered as a personal ownership of information. This is a totally internalized transition, seperated from the direct influence of a teacher. To attain this transformation in their students teachers must play the role of the cheerleader. Teachers should motivate their students to mull over and internalize data for themselves.

Cheerleaders are responsible for crowd participation and maintaing interest. Teachers must similary make sure that their lessons inspire but entertain. Lessons need to be formulated for student participation. This can often be done by using different types of lessons. We have learned about three main types: Lecture, Discussion, and Cooperative Learning. Each type of lesson can best fit a different part of the learning models goal. Lectures are best for information presentation. Lots of material can be covered in a short period of time and organized by the teacher with little distractions. Discussions can be used as an insperational tool, students who are alowed to participate in discusions, dialoguing about the material, will be more naturally inclined to continue the prosses of learning on their own. Discustion and dialogue, when done right, bred research. When teachers motivate their students to research a topic on their own they have achieved in planting a seed of interest in learning. Group work or cooperative learning is an easy tool to rally class participation. When students are broken into small groups they are better prepared to participate, assuming different roles (leader, scribe, ect) and achieving goals set forth by the teacher.

Cheerleading teachers are a powerful tool in and out of the classroom. Remember to always cheer for the success of your students. Remember that learning is fun, and that students will spend hours focused on what they find interesting. It is your job to channel that interest to create adults who integrate seemlessly into society.

Intelligent Design in Public Schools

This paper was presented in a group presentation for EDTE 165. Everyone in the group researched and presented a different facet of intelligent design in schools.

Intelligent design has been the topic of intense debate for almost a decade. Conservative and fundamentalist groups are especially inclined to participate in the controversy. Adventisim has a special place in their heart for creation science and intelligent design, our 6th fundamental belief is creation as stated in genesis. It reads: “God is Creator of all things, and has revealed in Scripture the authentic account of His creative activity.” La Sierra, through the past year has proven how strongly Adventists hold the 28 fundamental beliefs and more specifically creationist science.1 This is a topic important to adventists, important to our professor's academic freedom, and important to anyone who is on an honest search for truth.

• Annie worked on: What is Intelligent Design?
• Nolan covered the positive aspects of ID curriculum.
• Danial worked on: What are the problems with intelligent design?
• Mateja researched the precedent set by the judicial system.
• I worked on:What is the future of creationism, ID, and evolution?

Creation science and Intelligent design have been expelled from our public schools. Intelligent design was expelled in part because it was simply a new facade for creation science which had been ruled out of public schools in 1987. Supporters of creationism have been redefining and renaming creation science since 1987. This leaves one to wonder what new fad will come next. What will be the new rally cry for Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and countless other conservatives. It is impossible to know for sure. Many believe that the emergence theory will be hijacked and used as a rally cry. Or perhaps irreducible complexity will be the next anti-evolution movement. Currently emergence theory is an explanation of the formation for complex and ordered structures.

Emergence theory does not exclude God from the role of organization and therefore is quite attractive to some creationists. Irreducible complexity, though wounded during the dover trial in 2005, still has a strong following. This theory states that some organisms are so complex that they cannot be reduced. The reason this is so important to creationists is that evolution requires reduction of organisms into simpler life forms. If there truly are organs and systems with irreducible complexity something more than natural selection is needed for their formation. This “extra” is easily identifiable as God and makes this theory very attractive to creationists, however, at the same time, it also is a religious motivator and therefore dangerous to teach in our public schools. Only time will tell if emergence theory, irreducible complexity, or some totally different theory moves to the forefront of the debate. What we can be sure of, is that this debate is far from over. With over two thirds of the population supporting non-evolutionary origins this debate will continue for a long time.