This Year was like a Sierpinski Triangle
Sure, your first reaction is that it went on and on forever…an endless rabbit hole of a year where you fell deeper and deeper into the triangles (or, in my case, tetrahedrons), and, I admit: Yes. In some ways it was like that. My students continually required me — recess, lunch — the emotional wear and tear was real, however, I loved being with them and being there for them, as best as I could be.
No, the Sierpinski Triangle comes more from all of us taking a chance. Kinda like this student said:
So, here are the ways my (well, our year — as I think my kids would agree) year is best represented by our Sierpinski triangle.
“Let’s build it as tall as we can! Try to get to the ceiling!” — This was the original goal.
We Played and We Took Chances
I’ve blogged a few times and about play in the math classroom. This was me taking a chance, by letting students play and immerse in some math (and I still have a lot more to do, and a lot more places to go with this). We also tried math tasks — ones that maybe would have scared students (and me) before.
One of these was exploring fractals, and then jumping in and building one.
The Sierpinski Triangle itself represents play and the unknown — how far can I go in? Will it ever end? How will I know?
We jumped in the fractal — and sometimes what we did was an awesome ride in mathematics, other times it made us kinda sick to our stomachs, and we had to back out.
Either way, I am so proud we played, and took risks, and tried. As a teacher it can be scary because you fear losing control, as a student it can be scary because you could be wrong. If we were all unsure together, then we could help each other together. Now math became a collaborative and true endeavor — with none of us the experts.
We Set Goals for Ourselves, but, The Goals are Infinite; Endless
Like a fractal, the goals we set for ourselves, both as a teacher and students, are far reaching. They will be life-long goals. My students will: Grow their love and passion of mathematics, that students keep asking questions, and keep wanting to create.
My goal is to keep pushing myself to learn more about math, to be in the right moment with students, and ask the right questions — all while falling down the proverbial endless Sierpinski triangle, and making sure they notice and wonder along the way.
We didn’t reach the ceiling — far from it. But, when we completed one tier, the cheers from around the room sounded as if we had.
We Entered at Different at Different Places
The cool thing about a Sierpinski Triangle is that you can jump in from any spot — any open triangle.
And we did that this year.
And I did just that: I gave students opportunities to explore and experience mathematics, and then we went back and noticed and named. Funny, this student says I explained ‘stuff’, but, really, a lot of the ‘explaining’ came from them.
Just like we had to visualize how to build the Sierpinski Triangle, we had to jump in from where we understood. Our classroom was like that — starting from what we knew, and working with each other along the way to complete understanding.
Messy, continual, collaborative, and playful — some of the adjectives I would use to describe the math year, and, how you know you really have found a passion for math.
I’ll leave this final image from my student feedback. Powerful is a great word to describe our math journey this year, and our one tier Sierpinski Triangle sure represents our process of getting there.
