Chapter
12 – Think For Yourself
This chapter is
all about problem solving. Rafe explains that he comes to school at 6:30 a.m.
every day to teach willing students about how to problem solve better, before
class even begins. His goal is to help them realize that problems are not
solved with pencil and paper – they must understand the challenge in front of
them.
He passes out a
piece of paper that explains the steps for solving a problem, in outline form.
He then makes sure the students can recite these steps back to him. The steps
include understanding the problem, choosing an appropriate strategy, solving
the problem, and analyzing.
Rafe wants to get
away from telling students to “use their heads” or “read problems again”. He
believes it is very important to give them the skills to solve any kind of
problem – be it on a math test or in real life.
The methods he
lays out can be helpful for young students and adults alike, as math is a
subject that is difficult for many to truly grasp. He also mentions a valuable
resource (www.mathstories.com) which
is useful for finding challenging and interesting word problems.
He ends the
chapter with a beautiful story about how a gang once vandalized his classroom
while the students were on break, and he was across the country. One little
girl was at school for orchestra practice when she saw what had happened, and
she took it upon herself to call up her classmates, divide up the work, and fix
up the classroom. She attributed this idea to the problem solving she had
learned in Rafe’s class.
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