21/3/21: starting a maths lesson

I returned to full time secondary school teaching in September 2017 after a 22 year absence. Now, I had done all manner of things relating to schools during that time, including part-time teaching, school visits, also some Sunday School teaching. But having got as far as I felt that I could working in Universities – the next big step would have necessitated a large amount of work on research which I neither consider to be a primary area of strength nor a passion – I felt that I wanted to return to school teaching, to actually do what I’d been talking about for so many years.

I was fortunate to get a post in a school I knew well from the outside, and particularly my immediate boss, the head of the mathematics department, was a colleague from some years before which was really helpful. I knew that the return to the classroom was going to be tough, but I don’t think I was fully prepared for just how tough it was going to be. The nature of working in mathematics education as a University lecturer is that I had a small number of whizzy ideas to exemplify particular points, whereas what school teachers need are a large number of workaday ideas for the daily reality of teaching with a massively greater amount of contact time. I remember getting to the end of the first day and joking, “So we have to come back and do this again tomorrow?” – except that it wasn’t entirely a joke. Daily routines were a struggle, and I ended up waking up at 2am only to doze thereafter, with a grinding sense of failure that I was doing far worse for my students than I knew was theoretically possible. Somewhat after 1/2 way through the first year I ended up taking time off for stress when the whole thing became too much. However, I carried on, really grateful to then colleagues and students for all their support, and really, really grateful for the opportunity given to return to the classroom.

In the middle of all this was what was called “The settler” which was the beginning of each lesson. A list of numbers was prepared to last for 1/2 term, and then each day there would be a rule, such as, “Multiply by 99”, “Divide by 4 and round up”, “Times by 3 and add 23” and many, many more. So, as students arrived for the lesson, they would see what the rule for today was and know what to do. Initially I was very resistant to doing this with my students and I think there were a number of reasons for this, including feeling overwhelmed and this was yet another thing to do. Also it took a while to understand that the purpose was not to come to any great realisation about the nature of the numbers, it was, as its name implies, to settle, to signify, we’re now in the mathematics lesson, time to get our mathematics brains ready. The settler also goes some way to address a criticism often made of secondary mathematics, which is that youngsters come from primary schools with good calculation skills which then waste away in the secondary years through lack of use. From a practical point of view, it also gives me as the teacher a couple of minutes to get things organised ready for the beginning of the lesson whilst the students are purposefully organised.

When I did, belatedly, start using the settler I became a convert to the cause with all the zeal which comes with it. The settler is great! And so when I came to change schools, to work here in Uganda, I was determined to bring the settler with me. And I have. With my two older classes I sometimes make some comment about methods eg. for multiplying by 99, links between multiplying by 1.1 and percentages, different reasons for doing division sums and how the way of dealing with any remainder changes accordingly, but generally I use it according to the original intention, some practice of basic numerical routines before going on to the main part of the lesson. It’s with my youngest class, Grade 7 or Year 8, where the settler really comes into its own. It’s a small group, only 5 students, which is a huge luxury, able to give additional support in a subject they find difficult. They just love the settler! If it’s a division one of them will ask if he can write the relevant timestables on the white board. Lots of discussion about calculation methods. Also, something which the students came up with, they ask if they can ‘reserve’ a number, ie. if they’re working on one particular calculation please can nobody else give the answer to it in the meantime. They also like Tarsia activities – ie. triangular jigsaw puzzles with matching statements on adjoining sides, see for example this website – so I need to be careful that, with a settler which is taking on a life of its own, and then the need to leave a reasonable amount of time to do the Tarsia puzzle, there is enough time between them for a reasonable main part of the lesson.

So my thanks to colleagues at my previous school for persevering with me, I really appreciate it, and am pleased that the concept of the settler is now fully international – even if that means it is used in two schools. One question on my mind is whether – and how – the concept of the settler can be adapted to other subject areas. I know that English lessons sometimes start with maybe 10 minutes of silent reading which is broadly similar. What about other subjects? Working on this, do let me know if you have any thoughts.