I posted this task to the Math Future email group and here are a few responses. Reposting for the class archives!
Troy Peterson (benevolent)
To alleviate math phobia, increase engagement and eliminate abstraction henceforth mathematics will be taught in this fashion.
Students will then be allowed access to interactive games and videos describing fractal geometry, geometry and trig.
Now, my observation of both classes:
In math circle, the young kids are pretty much like puppies - they will chew on whatever they get their teeth on. They are happy to play with the materials, ask all types of questions, build their own puzzles and suggest them to one another, go on side discussions and come back with new ideas, etc. They laugh and roll on the floor.
The six graders were terrified. They were moaning. They were telling me " I never saw anything like this and I do not know what you want me to do", " When I look at these puzzles I get a headache", " This is not in the textbook", " How are you going to grade us?". They were afraid to laugh when the problem sounded really silly, and looked completely out of their comfort zone. It took me half an hour just to get them to be semi- relaxed - mostly by asking them the questions they have already encountered, and then making fun and silly modifications to those. It was very hard to explain them that all I want from them is to play.
Not surprisingly, the younger kids were able to solve more puzzles and suggest more ingenious solutions than the older kids.
By sixth grade, the kids stop playing with the problem. They expect the teacher to model the problem solution, and then re-create the solution to get a good grade. They are conscious of their image, and consider not knowing the answer as a failure. So, they prefer to give up before even trying.
So, as a benevolent ruler, I would:
Get rid of the grades, tests and other sources of external fear
Get rid of external awards - the motivation and pleasure should come from actual playing with the problem
Choose the materials that provoke thinking and desire to play/experiment with them
Let teachers play with the materials ( include this time into lesson prep)
Let older kids teach younger kids, and vice versa
Include role playing, acting and jester courses into teacher educational curriculum
Value teachers by how much they inspire students to explore and create on their own, not how much they make them learn.
Make teachers take the pledge similar to Hippocratus pledge before they start teaching
I could write more, but I have to run..:)
signature file or saying of the day or something somewhere that said
this, without attribution:
"All mammals learn by playing."
So profound. My inclination is to say that we are born knowing how to
play (or born with the predilection to learn to play and to enjoy it
immensely) and we beat it out of children when we start deciding what
they will be doing for the largest part of their waking hours.
In other words, your "puppies" analogy is spot on, and what you're
seeing is that they are acting like un-damaged mammals.
But I have to also admit that for the sixth grader group, there could
be more than the horribly stultifying ravages of curriculum to
blame--they are also adolescent mammals at this point and as such are
probably going to have a natural anxiety about appearance, acceptance,
etc, no matter what.
Still, I don't think it would be nearly this bad with non-coercively
My Supreme Ruler would include in its dictates that no class be
attended except voluntarily. Then those things that Julie suggested
would be stuff teachers would do to try to actually have a class....