Two imaginary letters

Dear Ms. Ghazi,

This is Elli from your math 9 class. I am writing to you because one of my Profs at the university reminds me of you. He, like you, speaks in a flat monotone voice. I am really struggling in this class as I did in yours. I know you did care about our learning. You were trying to do your best to make mathematical concepts as simple as possible for students to grasp. I really appreciated it, but your monotonous voice often made me fall asleep in the math class. I had to self-teach myself and even sometimes had to ask for help to understand the material completely. I hope this criticism helps.

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If teachers can’t be heard, they can’t effectively teach their students. Voice is one of the most effective tools that a teacher has. Expressive voice can catch students’ attention, make the subject interesting and inspire them to learn. This letter indicates that I need to work on my voice to be able to use it as an effective teaching tool.

Dear Ms. Ghazi,

This is Sara from your math 8 class. I am writing to you to thank you because of your wonderful class. Your way of teaching not only improved our reasoning skills, but also helped us learn how to use these skills in our everyday life. I really enjoyed our activities in which we practiced giving and asking good reasons, making good distinctions and connections, making valid inferences, discovering assumption, generalizing, asking good questions, using and recognizing criteria, and judging well. I’ve learned to seek and examine reasons in order to accept any claim and I’ve also learned how to make my own choices and judgments based on reasons.

These skills prepared me for adulthood. They have enabled me to identify and to refuse to accept irrational and unreasonable arguments made in public debates. These skills also have helped me to protect myself from believing what others want me to believe without adequate inquiry, to embrace my responsibilities, and so on. Using these skills makes my every day life more meaningful and enjoyable.

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It is important to help students to use their reasoning skills improved by math in their every day life. From this letter, I take that students appreciate math and see it’s importance if we as teachers be able to teach math in a way that enable students to use their reasoning skills in their every day lives.