To be perfectly honest, this article was a little overwhelming for me to read. At first, I was intrigued by the usage of real-life examples that might compel students to think about their choices, such as the food production example on page 21. I began thinking about all the different areas I could explore by creating word problems that had more meaning than the traditional real-life examples that tended to deal with currency or very specific scientific ideas.
However, when I began reading about chaos and encouraging students to search for the mathematics required to solve a problem, I began to worry. I do believe in expanding my students' minds and allowing them to explore and research within math, but the sheer amount of research and background knowledge that I feel I would need to be a good leader within these activities was what overwhelmed me. I need to have an idea of the field that I want my students to explore before assigning them projects within it but I feel under qualified to teach about areas such as sustainability, technology, and other sciences so I'm not sure what the best course of action is.
My thoughts on bringing climate change and mass extinction into the classroom is that it is a choice individual teachers have to make. I think to a certain extent, we incorporate our interests into our classes because teaching about things we are passionate about helps to inspire our students. I personally believe that sustainability is a topic that is important for me to bring to my classroom and so I would be able to inspire or at least bring awareness of it to my students. On the other hand, I don't believe it should be required of all teachers. For example, if a teacher personally didn't believe in the importance of sustainability or took a more pessimistic approach to the subject, it could be detrimental to the students.
Coming back to my lack of knowledge about sustainability, I believe I could better handle students’ and adults’ knowledge and emotions if I had a stronger background to draw from when answering questions. I am genuinely thinking of taking time off after completing this teaching program to research sustainability (and other fields that I feel are important) and determine how to bring that to my classroom in a productive way so that I'm prepared beforehand and not figuring it out as I go. Not only are students and their parents views important to think about, but also fellow staff members. If I can't stand behind introducing sustainability with confidence and a plan, I'm not going to be able to answer any skepticism that comes my way or provide good advice for those looking for how they can take action.
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