Final Blog Post

It is hard to separate this inquiry class with the garden - if there's any class I feel most attached to the garden it is inquiry. Perhaps it was the three straight hours spent there on Thursdays but I know for certain it was the moments we spent by ourselves reflecting in the garden (for me, the grapes). As I look back on my blogposts for this class I'm realizing where the non-traditional teaching methods and weaving Indigenous pedagogies came from in my education this first semester. Having Susan for three courses this semester, sometimes the lines get blurred and you don't remember which things you learned in which class but now I know. Rope-braiding, Salish weaving and such were taught to us in this class and what a wonderful semester I had doing such activities and learning such things. 

It is ironic that in this class is where we learned these things and then it is also in this class that I had my project be on student engagement. I really do want to try using one of these activities or crocheting during arbitrary math lessons to see if it could help student engagement.

Inquiry is definitely a journey and one I look forward to continuing throughout the rest of this program. Honestly, the blogposts are much fewer than I remember but I think that's because the class was only once a week. Within a few scrolls I'm able to reach posts from September where we discussed nature in heavy detail. I think this sort captures the essence of inquiry for me, reflecting and thinking. Critical thinking. Comparative reasoning. What we did in the garden in terms of comparing nature with manmade gave us the opportunity to critically think about such things outside just the garden and buildings around us. It also gives us the opportunity to reflect on mathematics outside our classrooms and how we can bring different lines of thinking into them.  

Mark and Teij's Cartesian Plane

Gosh, can I write about anything else but Teij and Mark's cartesian plane? I mean, how did they even come up with something so complex, simple and captivating in the short time Kathryn gave us. I'll say it again Susan, we really have some remarkably insightful individuals in this math cohort. 

I'll be completely honest - I was extremely nervous walking into class this Thursday. I was petrified that Kathryn was going to ask us to do some embodied movements and dance. When I first saw her I was astonished that this was the same person who wrote the article "The Butterfly Catcher". In her physical experience was extreme simplicity; simple black pants, a very nice black button-down and there was definitely some character in her blue sneakers. Simple haircut which seemed to be her natural hair colour. I was not expecting her to look the way she did and I was selfishly, pleasantly surprised to see her dress the way I dress. 

I recall during the entirety of her presentation I kept thinking how could this be the same person that wrote that article? Her words and voice was so loud in that writing but in real life her voice was soft. I saw snippets of the person I perceived her to be when she went into poses and embodied movements and I had the realization I should've known in the first place. Art transforms people. Still, I could sense that there was an air of growth, wisdom and maturity that had settled on her over the past 40 years and I so badly wanted to ask her if she herself noticed any change in herself. I didn't have the courage to ask but also, I didn't want to project my perception of who she was especially because I barely know her (technically, I don't know her at all). 

As we've been learning this entire semester, Kathryn delivered yet again more non-traditional methods in mathematics education. Math really is all around us. In the same way that we can find beauty if we truly look with the right eye, perhaps there is something similar in finding ways to teach math that is non-traditional. Perhaps giving students something completely unrelated to mathematics and asking them to draw a story or find a connection (as Kathryn did with us) is an effective way to help students help themselves learn, explore and create. 

The Butterfly Catcher

I read Kathryn Rickett's essay, "The Butterfly Catcher" several days before our class with her and I remember having to sit on it before writing a reflection on it. Clearly the days passed and I did not end up writing one but I remember I wasn't prepared to write it fresh after reading it. We've encountered a lot of embodied mathematics through physical movement and dance in this course and I have always struggled with it.

There are a few points as I try to break down my interpretation of her essay. It was without doubt, hard for me to relate to. Immediately after saying such a thing, I find it imperative to mention that it isn't always about finding something that relates to you - there doesn't always have to be such a self-centred approach whenever you interpret media in any form. Sometimes, despite the lack of personal connection, you can appreciate something for what it is and find the beauty of it through the creator's perspective. I was unable (unwilling?) to do that while reading this writing. Part of it I think was the conviction with which Rickett's wrote. Truly, I was unable to get passed the dominating topic of dance and performance to see through to the shared emotions of humans such as perseverance and true friendship. 

As I sit here now (actually I'm standing because I hurt my back playing basketball), I'm enamoured by Kathryn's gesture of staying by her friend's side during a difficult time for him. To drop everything, and go to her friend to help him with his life is something remarkable and shouldn't be looked over despite unshared hobbies and interests. 

I am not sure if you remember "Humans of New York". It's basically a man who used to take pictures of people and post his conversation with them in the caption - to say it took the world by storm may be an understatement. There are several posts that I know will stay with my for life; one of which was of a man who was (is?) a photographer. If I remember correctly, his partner had passed away and he said when he used to come to the park he used to see beauty in everything and could take many photos every day/week. After his partner passed, he was barely taking a picture a week. There is something so profound about that and I couldn't help but think about it when reading this article. I have an obvious inability to see the beauty and appreciate the meaning behind Kathryn and Jorge's dance act/performance. I am sure however they themselves as well as the dancers and audience members who can find appreciation in it will see the relevance, will capture what's being said and will find the beauty in it.  

Body Measurements

I'm going to have to go back almost two months to try to recall this particular Thursday. If I remember correctly, Susan had us use our fingers, hands, arms and other body parts to practically plant seeds that had instructions in metric (or imperial?) measurements. Brandon and I chose I forget which plant but we used rough approximations on our bodies to hypothetically plant the seeds. For example - if the instruction said to plant them in one-inch wide sections, we said the middle joint of our thumbs to the top was about an inch. As I'm reflecting on it now, I'm wondering how we could have done this without having the initial knowledge of what an inch is. Even in the table provided, it lists our body measurements in rough approximations to measurements we already know/have knowledge of. I know this is 450 and not 442 but I'm wondering now how things were standardized by Babylonians during their time. It's not like everyone's feet or arms were the same size, but then again I guess since their measurements were for practical, personal use it was only necessary for them to know what something measured in as. I remember my mom using her hands a lot to measure stuff like furniture; only she needed to know how many of her hands it was because she was taking the measurement and going to the store to buy the appropriate item. Or she would do it with fabric and then go to the store and buy the appropriate length - again, it was an extremely customized and personalized measurement tool. Humans have always been innovative - this is a given. 

The most enjoyable part of the class for me was when we did the sundial exercise as a class. Often, I end up in my own thoughts and that's exactly what happened as I was observing the shadow made by the long stick we were using. I was trying to figure out the length of the shadow in relation to the object due to the position of the sun. In Islam, we have five daily prayers (our day goes from sunset to sunset so technically the night comes before the day). The prayers are spread out during different parts of the day: for example one is to be prayed from about the time the sky starts to brighten (the sun is 15-18 degrees below the horizon) and the time for this prayer cuts off as soon as the sun starts to rise about the horizon. Another one is prayed after the sun passes the zenith. One prayer is prayed from when the height of the shadow of an object is the same height and this prayer's time cuts off at sunset. I was so captivated by the length of the shadow because I was trying to figure out if it's length was greater than it's height. I also knew that the sun had not passed the zenith up until that point (our inquiry classes are in the morning and the sun passes the zenith around 12pm-1pm). Honestly, I was so absorbed in this that at one point I walked to the other side of the circle, picked up a decently sized branch and started trying to measure the length of its shadow by marking the place where its shadow stopped and then comparing it to the height of the branch.

I think I went off on a tangent but I recall that day for that specific experience of mine and so I felt important to discuss and share. Thank you for reading!

Inquiry Reflection

 I'm glad that Susan's prompt for this blog post says "...so far" because I know that I am far from done with my topic. It was an interesting experience to start with one topic (intercession during student disengagement) and end up with something far different (engagement) due to the research. I feel like that change has been my experience in this BEd program in a nutshell; you have one opinion, experience something, change your opinion, read something, change your opinion again, experience another thing, change your opinion again and so on and so forth. It's a constant learning process, up and downs and constant adjustments.

The research has been extremely interesting thus far. I think learning about the different domains of student engagement as well as how teachers perceive them will help me tackle student disengagement in my long practicum. It's interesting, sometimes you read something some time and in a moment where you're going through a relevant experience that thing you read will come to mind. I hope the same for me in my classes because there are all these important nuggets of information I'm learning and although I may not remember them all, I am sure at relevant times during my teaching experience I will randomly recall something I learned and put it to practice.