Summer

After yet another grueling, yet deeply satisfying day in the embedded class room, I reflected on my day. I thought about Summer, a second grader, who really struggled with some of the tasks we gave her. For Summer, each problem had to be counted one by one. So for 3+3 she needed to put out three fingers on each hand. Then carefully touched each finger to her cheek to count them all. She proudly said 6!

When we got to 5 + 6, her finger counting became more difficult, as she realized she did not have enough fingers to use her finger counting strategies. She counted several times slowly and carefully but she did not know what to to with the 6th finger on one hand when she needed it for the 5th finger too. She just kept trying! Finally, she looked up and said 11! She seemed to see an extra finger in her imagination. The point is, even though adding 5 + 6 was easy for most of our second graders that day, it was hard for Summer. But her persistence was more than awesome.

According to researchers who look at how people think of themselves as learners (Carol Dweck is one), it is exactly this kind of persistence, a belief that a person isn't stuck in his or her knowledge state (e.g. "smart" or "dumb") but that we are malleable--our intelligence is malleable and can be improved by hard work. Summer is just that kind of kid! Hopefully, her teacher will see that and encourage her in this way.

Later, in whole group, I offered the entire class a problem that turned out to be pretty hard for most of them. I spied Summer at the back of the room counting her fingers so very carefully. The problem was: Abby has 6 candy bars, and she gets some more while she is trick o treating. Now she has 13. How many did she get when she was out trick o treating?  About half the class was convinced it was 19. After class she came quietly up to me to show me what she had been doing. She counted up from 6 to 13 using her fingers. She told me the answer was 6. Okay, so she made a counting error (not surprising since I knew was still working on counting). But, she was proud, and she had a valid strategy for that problem. Go Summer!