Place Value in the Classroom Today
Place value is truly an educational term that gets emblazoned into our brains very early on as we learn numbers and how they operate in mathematical equations.
According to the dictionary, “place value is the numerical value that a digit has by virtue of its position in a number”.
Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, and so on.
And the Mayans came up with the concept of the absence of value, which they represented by the number zero.
Hmmm, so this is all great. I used to teach math once upon a time.
However, nowadays, I am thinking about place value in the classroom in other terms.
Today, this is how I see place value in the classroom. It is…
The numerical value we place on a child based on standardized, discreet item tests that only have one “right” answer.
Or their test scores that equate to a letter value that carries with it labels and where “C” is supposed to be “average”, yet we expect children to get A’s and B’s and shame them if they don’t.
Or position rankings in relation to other students such as 10th out of 100 students means the top 10% or .10 which can be viewed as a fraction and not a whole (child).
Children are not numbers, and we should not assign numerical values to a child.
It has especially become very evident during the pandemic that the more emphasis we place on data and numbers and mathematical place values, the more teachers and students are feeling resentful and shutting down because they know, in their heart of hearts, that what we truly value is so much more than a number.
One concept of place value that aligns with my values is that, as you can see in the picture above, we have parts that add up to a whole. When we get 9 parts and then, add one more, we have a whole group of ten that now places a one in the tens spot.
I love the concept of teachers helping children find all the parts of themselves and creating a whole, fully functioning person/little human being. That definitely aligns with the Spirit of Teaching.
What we truly place value on in the classroom today should be:
Relationships
Loving and kind support
Collaboration and cheering others on
Recognition of effort
Reliability and showing up
Relevance and real world needs
Gratitude and grace
Placing emphasis on values like compassion, empathy, grace, kindness, gratitude, love, peace and understanding.
Those are the true human place values in the classroom.
Teachers – place those values in your lesson plans.
Then, let those drive the data, and see what happens!
Teachers, WE VALUE YOU, and the place you have in this world to make a difference
in the life of a child and to make a positive impact on the world!
Thank you for all you do!
“Investigating Place Value” by Chrissy Johnson1 is licensed under CC BY 2.0
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