They’re called lessons for a reason

I teach 7th and 8th grade math. So I teach a math lesson every day.

We learn lessons in life constantly. Large small, important, really important. Yet we call our teaching “lessons”.

What lessons are we teaching our students when they are solving equations with radicals?

Do you know? Because I don’t. At least not fully.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love teaching math concepts. Because I love doing the problems myself.

But if we are going to call them lessons, shouldn't there be a clear larger-scale take away these students are getting?

As teachers we say all sorts of things as to “why” we teach the content. But really, WHY do we?

You hear we teach problem solving skills or that students are learning how to work with each other. But when a student is stuck on a problem graphing a quadratic, how do they see the reason behind why they have to learn this.

This is a problem. We have no idea WHY!

So why aren’t we using the 8 hours we spend EVERYDAY for 180 days a year teaching students LESSONS of life and growth and love and whatever other SKILLS they will need to be a successful human?

I mean so much by Skills. -finances

-marketing

-networking

-communication

- interpersonal skills

-self-confidence

-resiliency

Are we teaching these to students? Many teachers are in some degree. I find that I do, when I am actively thinking about it. But do the students REALIZE what they are learning?

Without the self awareness of what students are truly getting out of each lesson in the classroom, they are going to struggle to connect them to the bigger life lessons they can apply them to.

Sure we can try to articulate it, but that requires and clear, unwavering WHY behind the distance formula or the pythagorean theorem lesson we insist on teaching every year.