Aimee’s Interview
The interview process is an interesting one especially when curiosity and discourse is important to me. I enjoy listening, but my true enjoyment resides in digging and exploring. What this means to me is that at times it is advantageous to have these skills, but i must monitor my pace and listen more often, allowing the direction to take it course without my influence.
Aimee’s philosophical views surrounding education revolved around the objects:
Rubix Cube
Pack of Erasers
An Equation Sheet
Magnifying Glass
For Aimee, her views began with the complexities and intricacies of solving math problems. She discussed the ideas of algorithms to get the to the end result, but was more passionate about the intuition gained though intuitive understanding of the concepts. It was important for her to have her students gain the ability to solve problems bottom up and be able to work through the problems understanding the process as they move from A to Z.
The pack of erasers was a personal metaphor taken from her own educational experience and symbolized the importance of making mistakes and the saftey she will bring to her classroom in allowing her kids to explore through them.
The equation sheet had many reasons as we explored her beliefs behinds it. First of all it symbolized what is important to her in education and what should not be important for students to do–memorize. She wants her students to be able to utilize formulas efficiently through practice, but not necessarily memorize them for the sake of memorizing them as in life students will have access to these simple devices, but not the concepts that she wishes the students to understand.
The magnifying glass was a symbol for inquiry. Aimee agreed with the Seidman’s statements in his interview article regarding the need to explore options, not probe students. Accompanied with her magnifying glass (in spirit) was a cloak, hat and Sherlock Holmes novel as she wished that her students would become detective; to explore not only their strengths but their weaknesses in determining if those are truly their weaknesses. On a personal note (for Aimee), she said that this was her year to shine, her year to find out more about herself, to be vulnerable and to take chances as she in the path has often opted for safety and comfort.
