Something that is often said in the learning world is, “Meet the students where they are.” Ok, great, but what does that mean?
On the surface, it might seem obvious: find where the student is in their educational journey and meet them there. This is the approach most tutors and learning centers take. Working on long division in school? Great, let’s work on it together. Learning the basics of sine and cosine but a little bored in school? Alright, let’s do that and introduce tangent while we’re at it.
This approach is absolutely necessary at times, especially in older grades, but it is not nearly enough.
Let me ask again: what does it really mean to meet the students where they are?
The answer has four components to it:
Since we covered the topic of where they are in school, which is pretty self-explanatory, we must cover the other three areas. Miss any of these, and you won’t meet the students where they are, and as a result, won’t make as much of an impact.
School Need Versus Real Need
If I say “no child left behind,” what comes to mind? My guess is that you don’t reminisce on an educational system that didn't leave children behind. The reality of school is that quite the opposite is happening and the data proves it: math scores have been rapidly declining since 2012. This problem is nuanced, complex, and difficult to solve systematically, but it is undeniably a problem.
As such, students fall into three categories, especially before they reach middle school:
The students who are not falling behind are those who are typically engaged in math, enjoy it, or intrinsically understand it. Many come to Mathnasium because they aren’t being challenged in school.
The second category is also a bit obvious: those visibly falling behind. These students are typically the first to give up on themselves as “people who aren’t good at math” because they associate math with feeling dumb. To be abundantly clear, they aren’t dumb, nor is their lack of math proficiency an innate deficiency. We blame kids for their lack of education; we write them off—for the rest of their lives—as people who can’t do math. As a result, many kids become adults who think they aren’t capable of doing math, in turn seeing many doors close, seeing others never open, and often feeling less intelligent.
This attitude that we as adults take toward students is an immense disservice based on the myth that math is something you are born with. The truth is that math is like reading: none of us can do it when we are born and all of us can do it if taught properly.
The third and largest category is one that might come as a surprise. These are students who get good marks in school and can figure out how to get from unanswered questions to correct solutions, but don’t fully internalize what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, or both. For example, a student learns that two times four is eight. When presented with the problem 2 x 4 = ?, they know to write 8. But when asked to explain it, they don’t conceptually understand that they are creating two groups of four. That example is basic and happens at an early level, but it comes in much subtler forms with age.
The result? Students stray off the path of understanding math and onto the path of just getting the problem done. This approach eventually becomes a very real issue, both practically in school and cognitively. Imagine their math skills like an undercooked but well-decorated cake. When it is time to eat that cake—typically by the time algebra comes—the once pretty cake turns into a very unpleasant experience.
When it comes to meeting the students where they are, understanding that the work in school is quite different than the math they need to work on is crucial. The first group is the easiest to recognize this need for because they are typically not only not behind but actively ahead in school. Thus, we figure out what they can work on that will make them stay challenged and engaged with math. To do this, we should just give them advanced material, right? Well, not so fast. We first need to validate that their foundation is strong. I’ve worked with students who are extremely good with addition and subtraction but struggle with money. Should we move on to multiplication before they understand money basics? Of course not. We first must validate that the foundation is rock solid and, if it is, then find ways to challenge the student in meaningful ways. Our goal here is engagement, not just advancement. This need for balance is the main reason we do not allow students to come to Mathnasium more than ten times a month during the school year. Burnout is real and hurts the student in the long run.
When we look at the second and third groups, the initial goal and the method are the same: assess what’s missing and then work on it. Unfortunately for the third group, it is common that the issues aren’t visible…yet. But they will be. I have had countless conversations that go something like this: “My sixth grader has always gotten straight A’s in math but now has a C. I don’t know what’s going on, it’s like all of a sudden they don’t get it.” The timing of this drop-off varies but typically occurs between fifth and ninth grade, and isn’t actually sudden. It just surfaces abruptly. The later the problem rears its ugly head, the longer it takes to resolve. Diagnosing math problems early, before grades have tangible consequences, is crucial. Moreover, the earlier we identify a child as invisibly behind, the more likely we are to interrupt the association of negative feelings with math.
That brings us to the next part of meeting them where they are:
How Do They Feel About Math?
I want to do a thought experiment with you.
First, think of something you’re really good at doing. Maybe it’s your ability to manage a team, your overhead tennis serve, or your homemade pot roast. Think on it. How do you feel?
Now, think of something you aren’t good at. Say it out loud. How do you feel now?
Lastly, think about something you’re capable of doing but aren’t exceptional in. Maybe it’s your putting game in golf when your strength is off the tee, or something benign and mundane like writing an email. How do you feel?
My guess is your feelings went something like this throughout this experiment:
Each of these groups is numbered for a reason: they are associated with the three groups of students previously mentioned. These emotions are the psychological lens through which each group experiences math. Group 1, made up of advanced math students, feels positively toward math. Group 2, made up of the visibly behind students, feels all sorts of negativity toward math. Group 3 is somewhere in the middle and often is where you find the kids asking why they need to do math after getting 100% on their homework and 91% on their quiz.
Now let me ask you this: if we have two students working on the same problem set, but one is energized by the material and one is embarrassed by the material, should we teach it the same way? Of course not! Unfortunately, most learning protocols do exactly that, dogmatically declaring the importance of math to someone who feels negatively about it. This declaration further adds to their shame over struggling with the material and/or their disengagement with it. There is content that is identical across the board given to the students, which is an impersonal approach to the personal experience that is learning something.
Learning is practical and tangible, but it is equally emotional and psychological. It is our job as educators to identify the feeling that the student has toward the content and empathize with that feeling. If you feel angry that you don’t get it, hey, I hear you…it is frustrating and hard. If you are excited that you get to work on something else, I’m excited for you! If you’re bored and wondering why you need to do this, let’s talk about it openly.
One first-grade student I worked with (see more about my background here) was notably distracted and didn’t get through more than a few problems in our first session together. When she came in the next time and started off similarly distracted and disengaged, I was tempted—like anyone—to go over and encourage her to do her work. But I didn’t. Instead, I went over to her and asked, “How do you feel about these addition problems?”
She looked at me, paused, looked away, and said “Um, they’re, umm…really hard for me.”
Her problem wasn’t that she was distracted. It was that she was embarrassed. I clocked this, and acknowledged that it is hard and that it is okay that it’s hard. She smiled softly. We then worked on a couple of problems together and she started to pick it up. She then did one on her own with me sitting there.
I told her, “I am going to go help the other kids now. Keep working, you’re doing great.”
She replied, “No! Don’t leave me!” Dramatic, I know, but she's six years old.
“I know it’s scary, but I believe you can do it. I’ll be right over here,” I said.
She reluctantly agreed. When I came back, she had successfully done two problems by herself. I congratulated her and she was smiling ear to ear. That day she finished three times the work as the session before and had started to master addition. The next session she did even more work and I wasn't even there. It was all because an instructor listened to how she was feeling about math and made her feel safe to feel that way. That is our job. That is how we make a real long-term impact.
How Are They Doing Today?
An extension of the idea of students not just being students but also being normal people with ups and downs, we need to understand how they feel in the moment. What is the energy level? How is school going in general? Are they having a good or bad day? No doubt—we don't allow students to skip doing math when they don’t feel like it. We are responsible for helping build work ethic in these young people, and working toward goals despite having a bad day is a fundamental component of grit. Nevertheless, finding out how they are doing makes us significantly more impactful educators by making sure we are challenging the students appropriately.
One seventh-grade boy I worked with was in a sour mood one Sunday afternoon. He typically was pretty cheerful but something was off. The easy thing to do is write it off as middle school angst and hormones and just encourage him to do the work. Instead, I asked him from a place of genuine curiosity how he was doing. He proceeded to tell me that he had taken second in his championship swim meet that morning. He hadn’t lost a race all year and lost the big one.
So we talked about it. I was a competitive athlete from a young age through the end of college, so I knew his pain well. We discussed what happened in the race, though it was mostly just him venting his frustration. Once the conversation came to a natural conclusion, after about three minutes, I asked him what he wanted to do with his Mathnasium time that day. Now—to be clear—if he had said that he wanted to stop and go home, I wouldn’t have agreed to that. But he didn’t say that. He was feeling better already. He said he would do a couple of pages and then work on the Problem of The Week. It would be a bit of a lighter day than usual most likely, but would still be a productive use of time. I agreed.
What is the takeaway here? Well, if I had just urged him to work without finding out how he was doing, he would’ve likely stayed sour, brooding over his defeat instead of learning math. Sure, he could’ve finished some work (though likely not that much given his anger), but how would his feelings toward math be affected? Perhaps it would have soured a little bit. He'd probably be thinking, Ugh, this bald guy is making me do math and I just want to go home and be alone. Math is so annoying.
We don’t want that. A day engaged negatively with math pushes the needle toward disengagement. Our end goal is for these students to thrive in math and feel good about it.
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When a kid feels good about math and works on the right material, there is only one possible outcome in the long run: success in math and confidence in oneself. Enabling that end goal is ultimately what it means to meet the students where they are.
-Troy Makous, Owner of Mathnasium of Pike Creek
(302) 509-2010
