If a train leaves New York...
Math was never my favorite subject, and “word problems” were the bane of my existence. I simply didn’t care where or when (or even if) a train leaving Washington, DC, at 4 pm, traveling north at a speed of 60 mph, and another leaving New York at 6 pm, traveling south at a speed of 80 mph, would meet. However, when Mrs. Kerr transformed the trains into an old Ford pickup truck and a Farmall tractor pulling a bailer, I was interested. I had never ridden on a train going north or south, or east or west, for that matter; but I had ridden in a pickup and on a tractor pulling a bailer. She created word problems that could and did occur within the world I knew. Her “down home” way of teaching made me comfortable with a subject for which I previously had little enthusiasm and more than a little dread . The ability to do that – to capture the interest of a reluctant student – is the essence of a great teacher; and Mrs. Kerr was, indeed, a great teacher.
Posted by Linda J. Morris Gall
Sunday December 30, 2012 at 9:09 am