Do Student's Care?

On the first day of my student observation, the teacher gave each student their interim grade. I am observing a Pre-Algebra class and the students really seem to not enjoy math at all. Based on their interim grades, most of them were not doing so well in the class. At the end of the class, my cooperating teacher asked me if I had any questions so I asked him if it discourages him to see his students doing poorly in his class. He replied "At first it upset me, but after a while you realize that it's not your fault and some students just don't care". This hit me hard, I just couldn't imagine not caring about my grades, especially in math which is a very important subject. Right as he finished telling me this a student came up to his desk and he asked the student to explain to me why he was failing math. The student replied that he doesn't do anything and I didn't know what to say. When the student came back for his interim grade not only was he failing, but he was failing miserably.... he had a 29% in the class. So what I'm getting at is do student's care anymore? What can be changed to make them care? This is a huge problem that is just going to keep getting worse if nothing changes. I'm very interested to know other people's perspective on this issue, so let me know!

Introduction to Creative Math

I am so excited to be making my first professional blog! This blog will include my thoughts and experiences as my first time doing Student Observation. I read an article on teaching Math creatively. This article basically opened me up to a whole new way of thinking about how to teach Math. Most people have an "oh no" reaction when I say that I'm majoring in Math. This makes me think that they probably had a bad experience in school while learning Math that makes them not like it so much. My take on this is to find a way to make Math fun and exciting, make students want to go to Math class. I know that personally I had a really bad eighth grade experience in Pre-Algebra. I had a horrible teacher that did not care about if we were learning or not, he wanted to stick to his schedule and never offered outside help. My goal is to change my student’s way of thinking, actually make them care about Math and see that it can be enjoyable. Hopefully when I become a teacher, my students leave my feeling differently than when they walked into it on the first day.