Perseverance

With the transition to the Common Core and a recent session at the IMPACT Center at Plymouth State University, perseverance has come into the fore front of my teaching and planning.  What does it mean for students to persevere in the math classroom? How can we teach this to students?  How can our lessons, activities, instruction and curriculum encompass this idea of perseverance?

The quick and easy answer here is problem solving.  Ask teachers how to challenge students and the likely response will include problem solving.  Check in with directors of mathematical instruction and surely problem solving will arise as a focus or solution in one way or another.  However, problem solving does not appear to be a simple answer for developing and promoting perseverance in our students.  In reality problem solving is what makes our students throw their hands in the air. One could say problem solving is the anti-perseverance.

Engaging students in the problem solving process can be described as exploring, examining, applying, testing, reflecting and developing conjectures. Students are given mathematical problem upon problem with the dream that consistent exposure will develop student understanding and mathematical skills needed for the real-world. The emphasis becomes cooperative learning, active participation and investigations that build new knowledge. Again, where does the habit of perseverance come into play? It is expected but how is it taught?

Perseverance is commitment, hard work, patience and endurance. Perseverance is a willingness to try and try again.  Check Webster’s online dictionary and you will see perseverance defined as a “continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition: the action or condition or an instance of persevering.”  How do we incorporate this into our mathematical classrooms?  We expect it and want students to develop this as one of their very own habits of mind but as teachers we need to teach this.

There is not a quick and simple answer to teaching perseverance.  It is not going to magically happen in one class or even in one year. As educators we can only model, expose and encourage this habit regularly and regularly.  Here are some suggestions on how to develop perseverance:

• Give students non-routine problems which may appear impossible.
• Let students wonder and inquire for extended times. Refrain from giving out the correct answer.  Prolong the awe and wonderment for classes, days and even weeks.
• Allow students to share observations and build off one another’s reasoning.  Let students support and argue the findings of another. 
• Ask questions and expect students to prove themselves.  Expect convincing arguments.
• Let students experience failure.  It is okay for students to take a risk and find out that was the wrong route to take.
• Work with students and show them that you don’t have all the answers.  Model the process of learning together.

Perseverance….the habit of mind which teachers are expected to teach must persevere to perfect.