Just Give Me a Worksheet

Thinking is hard.

We are born into a an uninterrupted stream of consciousness. Thinking is our birthright, as a species, and yet, still, thinking is hard. Classrooms should be wide open spaces for thinking, though, and we can build thinking classrooms.

We recently gave an interesting problem to grade 10s, and kids did great on the problem. They had interesting ideas and strategies, and persevered to the answer.

At the end, one kid asked: “can I just have a worksheet next time?” This happens a lot. It signals a sense of mastery with that one mode of learning, and to be fair, in this case, he had a great handle on the mathematics in the task. I don’t necessarily think he was trying to avoid thinking, but many kids are.

A worksheet has a clear beginning and end, and is something you can just chug through, until you reach the end. A lot of problems are much more messy- their structure is initially murky, until you engage with the problem. After that, the pleasure of problem-solving kicks in: solving the problem in your own unique way, with your own tools and strategies, is its own kind of mastery.

The problem is, worksheet mastery is more traditionally valued. Problem-solving mastery is currently more valued, and we do need to create thinkers in mathematics, and, as @MrSoClassroom says, make kids “doers of mathematics”. I do believe as well that problem-solvers can handle worksheets, although the opposite may not be true, and kids who just want the worksheet may be missing out on the beauty, wonder, and, frankly, interest of mathematics.

My question: what would you say to the kid who says “just give me a worksheet?”