by Leo Hutchinson

I may disappoint colleagues who teach mathematics in the secondary system when I state that around 80 per cent of my students at Roberts Education Centre in the West End of Vancouver claim that one of the reasons they do not understand math is because their previous math teacher(s) did not pay attention to them and their need to understand math better.

Teaching math to adult students since 1991 has made me a survivor in the most stressful environment, I must say. My students range in age from 16 to 65 and they are not only diverse in age, but also in culture, ethnicity, and motivation. In any adult structured class one may find a divorced mother of young teenagers who has not been in school for "ages" and who is also trying to get back to "work", and in that same class one might also find a young man who is living on the street and has not been in school since he was "kicked out."

Adult students know mathematics in unusual ways. For example, in a Math 12 class one may find that a student may not be able to solve correctly:
2(X + 8) = 12
but is able to solve:
log2(X + 8) = 2.

A structured learning environment is one that most educators try to accomplish in a class. It is not so much about the methods of teaching, but more about the rules and expectations that students have to follow and perform to. A few educators may claim that it is about the need to meet standards set by governments. However, adult students — especially those with learning disabilities— can survive living in a complex society but may have difficulties in adapting to the "structured learning environment" of a math class.

"Despite all the rhetoric about reform, teaching and schools have changed little as old practices die hard. Lecturing continues to be the main method of instruction in secondary schools, and the overhead projector is often the most advanced technology used. For many students, school is seen as a dull, non-engaging environment that is much less interesting than what is happening outside of school." (David A. Sousa, Is the Fuss About Brain Research Justified?, Education Week, 1998)

Educators may agree to disagree with Sousa; however, one may not find too many students in secondary schools saying that their math classes are full of excitement. Most adult students studying math would be the first to raise their hand in favor of the slogan "Math Sucks."

And I have to say that it is not cultural. It is a myth that Asian students are better in math, for example, or that they like math more than students from other cultures do. Not some of the Asian students that I have met and known, anyway! They are mostly in the same situation as other students who end up in my Math 12 course. They need a mark to get into a post-secondary program and somewhere along the line they failed to be successful in achieving this mark in their home school.

At times, I tell my students that they have the capacity to learn math and that I will facilitate their knowledge and learning. "You don't have to come to class if you do not want to," I proclaim, " but again, why would you want to miss it? In this class you will learn How-To-Learn mathematics."

In a class of 30 students each semester I probably lose about 10 of them for various reasons. However, failing the course is seldom is the reason for withdrawal. Some common withdrawal reasons are: the student found a job; doesn't need the course anymore, or needed to get a grade of B or A instead of a C.

Are educators failing to teach mathematics appropriately? I do not rely on students' testimonies that "If my math teacher had been like you, I wouldn't be here now," or "My math teacher was an elitist and he worked only with the smart kids." However, I wonder what students would say if it was possible to communicate their feelings to their math teachers from a future point back into the present.

I try to separate the issue of caring about how students feel about mathematics and how much time I have to properly teach the curriculum — and I can't. In a sense, I feel like I need to prove to them that mathematics is not this empty, no good, useless-in-every-day-activities language.

And to accomplish this, I start by attempting to change their "math" feelings. "It was not math or school that you did not like," I declare, "It was probably a teacher who did not connect to you or it was perhaps other circumstances that caused you to have math anxiety," and this is life. Now let's work together to see if we can do better in learning math."

And I push them to their limits; but, I also provide them with enough space to breath by, for example, allowing them extra time to study for a unit test. In adult education, sentences like "I haven't see you for a couple of weeks. Is everything okay?" are common; answers may not be. Teaching mathematics to adults should be an exuberant experience and successful educators should not only be mathematicians but philosophers and realists as well.

Groundwork · Vol. 25 No. 2· Fall 2000 · page 10