Some educators may balk at combining English and Math under the heading of language arts, while some students might unhappily conclude that learning math is like learning a foreign language. There’s truth in the latter view considering, for example, that the basis of solving word problems algebraically is translating words into math expressions. Math is […]
Francis Martini
Fran Martini received an MBA at Loyola College and earned credits in a teaching certification program at College of Notre Dame. After a career spent mainly working for financial institutions, but also including teaching evening classes in marketing at various Baltimore area colleges, Fran retired in 2017 and volunteered as a tutor at St. Michael-St.Clement elementary/middle school in Baltimore. He is currently tutoring middle school math.
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
The Inner Student: Math Changes Lives
All educators know there’s far more to teaching than accomplishing the stark outline of a syllabus. In fact, the most important accomplishment is illuminated by an email I received from Logan’s mom after tutoring him in math: “…Logan ended up with a 91 in math!!!! …You changed the course of Logan’s self confidence, drive and […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
The Power of Connection: Lessons from the Teachers We Never Forget
It surely takes little effort for most of us visiting The Educator’s Room to conjure up memories of favorite teachers and in our imaginations picture them in their classroom kingdoms. Mr. Hemphill is the teacher I see, a square-built man with thinning sandy-colored hair, who always wore a tie and white shirt with its sleeves […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Teaching and Learning: Learning to Teach by Listening to Students
As teachers, we know that many factors contribute to students maximizing their potential and, hopefully, gaining mastery of a subject. And among those factors, only one is totally within our control – how well we develop and employ our teaching skills. Skills that are enhanced when we embrace the opportunity to learn from our students, […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
What to Teach: Why character education is important
It’s difficult to imagine an educator who would not be emotionally affected and professionally engaged by this excerpt from a letter to educators published in Teacher and Child by Haim Ginott. “I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness: gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned […]
Posted inMathematics
Math is Beautiful
As my tutoring sessions with Jaylen happily show, how educators view the subject they teach can have a wonderful effect on how their students feel and think about that subject, even one as superficially unwelcoming as math! I’ve volunteered at an elementary/middle school as a tutor for the last eight years, although last school-year was […]