Success Strategies for Teaching Struggling Math Students

They stuck you with Pre-algebra! Most likely, you’re a beginning math teacher paying your dues until you can get some “real” math classes. You could be from a more enlightened school where everybody takes a turn in the “low-end” math classes—rare, but it happens. Or, ugh, they might be filling up your schedule because enrollment is low in your regular classes. Or worst of all, they assigned these kids to you hoping you’d quit. Now you have a choice. You can trudge through this class every day with one eye on the clock while you endure the soul-crushing apathy of these kids and their lousy social skills. –Or— You can do something meaningful and help these kids improve their math skills, their social skills, and their learning skills. At the same time, you can improve your instructional and classroom management techniques. When you get good at teaching math to kids that struggle, you might even start to like the class. There is an upside to this assignment. They pay no attention to this class or these kids. Nobody really cares what you do with the curriculum and instruction. Keep the office phone from ringing, don’t write up too many kids, and you can pretty much do as you please. It’s not much of a kingdom, but it’s all yours, and you can turn it into a reasonably pleasant experience for yourself and the kids. I’m not a real math teacher—I was a shop teacher, an alternative school principal, and finally a math teacher working exclusively with struggling students. I am the only teacher, that I know of, who specifically asked to teach these difficult math students. I’m good at it. I spent eleven years learning how to make these knuckleheads more successful—much more successful than they have ever been since second or third grade. I can show you how to do it too. So follow along as I explain Success Strategies for Struggling Math Students. The worst that could happen is that things won’t get any worse. Things might even get better.