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OGDEN — Diane Pugmire, a math professor at Weber State University, compares teaching math to different students to finding the right tool to fix a job.“I have a lot of tools to help people who don’t see things,” she said. “If this person doesn’t see it this way, you have to get out another tool to teach them. So my tool bag is pretty big.”
Pugmire and her colleague, Dixie Blackinton, recently were named Educators of the Year by the Utah Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development. They were honored at a luncheon recently in Provo.
“I am really honored that I could get it with Dixie,” Pugmire said. “I’ve learned so many things from her.”
The duo has teamed up many times over the last 20 years to develop programs to help elementary education students learn the skills they need to teach their students math. Both professors teach students learning to become teachers, and work to give them the deepest knowledge of math before graduating and teaching in elementary schools.
“You can’t teach something unless you know it,” Pugmire said. “Some people think you can be a great teacher and a great showman. Well, if you don’t know it, you can’t teach it. I’m afraid that’s what’s happening in our public schools. There’s a lot of really great people out there, but they don’t know it deep enough.”
Blackinton and Pugmire have worked to develop programs that have not only taught students enrolled at the university, but they have also partnered with several area school districts to help teach math deeper to teachers that are already in the field.
The secret to teaching children, Pugmire said, is getting them to see math by visuals and hands-on activities, not just having them memorize tables and charts.
Pugmire said she enjoys teaching how to teach math because she sees so many college students who struggle because they weren’t taught correctly in school.
“It’s really fun to teach people how to teach it,” Pugmire said. “You get a lot of people in here (the math office) in tears and frustrated. It’s because they don’t have the background and they see how long it’s going to take them.
“That’s why it’s so neat to teach teachers, and I tell them that all the time. It’s your responsibility to teach them or you are putting blinders on them and not opening doors.”
