Magic · Sun Apr 23, 16:55 by Eleri Straker
Sometimes it takes magic to do this job.
A colleague of mine is both a talented mathematician and a brilliantly inventive magician. He’s a young man with a wicked sense of humour and a wonderful way with kids. He’s a form tutor and through a growing friendship, we sort of came to an informal arrangement that if ever the need arose that I would stand in for him if he needed to be elsewhere during tutor time. It works well as I like the class and I like him. I’ve watched him with his form and been amazed at the way he handles the most difficult of students: he does it with humour and…magic.
He’s a talented amateur magician in the style of Derren Brown (but with a lot more charm I think) and I’ve observed him defuse a potentially unpleasant confrontation with a smile, quick wit and sleight of hand – both verbal and actual. I’ve also discovered that like me, he is a bit of a geek when it comes to science fiction or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In fact, on a long wet hike through the woods abutting the school (annual sponsored walk) we found that not only could we quote Chaucer (in the manner of Bill Bailey) at each other, we could also quote chapter and verse of any Star Trek, Star Wars or anything written by Joss Whedon without error or embarrassment.
All this became very important this week.
My son, who is now seventeen and studying mathematics, finally admitted that he had a real problem with statistics and had done so for a while. When asked why he hadn’t said anything earlier, he told me that he was afraid that if he actually vocalised, his fear, then it would become a reality, and then he really wouldn’t be able to do it. Now it’s getting close to exam time and as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my maths isn’t brilliant, and what I know about statistics I could write on the pointy end of a pin and still have room left over. So we both had a bit of a panic and I eventually rang the school, meaning to speak to his maths teacher. Well she’d already left and I ended up speaking to my magician friend. When I explained the problem, he had no hesitation in suggesting I bring my son to see him. So I did.
An hour and a half later, I went to pick him up and the boy I collected was not the one I’d left earlier: he was positive and could now, apparently do the statistics. When I asked him about the time he’d spent with my colleague, he told me that an hour had been spent explaining the maths in a way that my son could clearly access. The rest of the time had been spent comparing notes on Joss Whedon’s ‘Firefly’, Buffy, martial arts and computer games.
My son retired to his room, completed his statistics homework and when he handed it in the next day, got 98% – the highest grade in the class.
What my magical colleague had done was understand. He’d seen my son’s fear and defused it. He’d made the effort to find out what he liked and how he thought. He’d found common interests and through that, found a way to explain the (to me) incomprehensible.
The effect on my son was amazing. He’d suddenly realised that there were other people out there who liked the same things that he did and who didn’t have any worries discussing Oblivion (a computer game) in the same breath as statistical problems.
My liking for my mathematical colleague has grown into a new respect. In fact, what he did was inspired. He made a connection. He took the time to get to know my son and to understand the way he thinks. He then used that understanding to find a way into the maths. (In fact, the following day, he told me that he found the way that my son thought was interesting as apparently, he looks at maths with the eyes of an artist…)
Surely this is what teaching should be about. Understanding the way the student thinks. I know it’s easier in a one-to-one situation, but the principle is the same in the classroom. If you can meet the students somewhere, on some common wavelength it can bridge the gap between student and teacher by showing the students that teacher is human too. Showing humanity isn’t a weakness; it doesn’t, as one of my colleagues fears, give the student a weapon to use against us. It allows them to connect with us. And in some cases, this, as my mathematical friend has proven, can be truly magical.
