Motivated in Math

Currently in Waskaganish, covering my coworker's vacation. I'm only here for two weeks and move onto East Main this Sunday. 

I've got to say, it's great to finally be in the same community as J. again, even if the time is brief. The last time we saw each other was the first week of January. I've been staying at his place on occasion. Tonight, I made some pad thai and then came back to my work house. Right now, it's a healthy balance. His place is a bit too small for the both of us. 

After school, two girls came out to library, where we're currently running our classes. We played Equate for a little while, then my math lesson on integers with two Secondary 1* students, D. and A., went very well. I used coloured wooded cubes (positive integers) and uncoloured wooden cubes (negative integers) to demonstrate how to add integers**. I'd only used this method once to teach a very bright Grade 6 student down south, but it was exciting to see these kids clicking; they were intrinsically motivated and started seeing patterns. They were totally in flow, even up until the end of our class, and wanted to continue practicing what they'd just learned. These are the moments I work for! 

More amazingly is the fact that a third girl, T., is only in Grade 5. I'd let her in on the condition that she would do work with us, even though she's not in part of our program. T. was picking up patterns faster than the other two. When we played 'Integer War*'** with a deck of cards, she was answering faster than the others. It's just unfortunate she doesn't get the enrichment they deserve. I was lucky that I was identified in Grade 4 and went through the next 9 years in the gifted program, getting the stimulation that I needed to keep me interested and motivated. There aren't the same opportunities here and smart kids here learn very quickly to suppress their intelligence; being a smarty-pants here is absolutely no advantage. Instead, you can singled out because you are too good for everyone. I look at T. and I see that she is definitely is hungry for knowledge. When I let her out of the school, she shyly asked if she could return again. I told her that I was very proud and I would gladly welcome her as long as I was still in the community.

What a great way to end the work day. I'm still wondering whether I should ask to teach elementary next year up here. While I enjoy working with secondary kids, it is draining when they are not motivated in very much at all. Part of me would prefer to have a regular classroom and be able to get the kids here more interested in numeracy and literacy. Of course, I know wherever I will be, I'll still try my hardest. 

*Grade 9 in Quebec. This is the first year of middle school.

**A coloured cube and a wooden cube add up to zero and 'cancel' each other out.

***Assign red-coloured cards as negative integer and black-coloured cards as positive integers (i.e. eight of  clubs is considered +8). Students flip cards from the top of their decks and add the numbers together. First person to state the correct sum wins the cards.