Why I write, and other musings

I funny thing happened today. My wife asked me, "How has your teaching changed since you started taking your Master's". She has been reading the blog as a show of support, and, I suspect, to make sure that she is not involved in any embarrassing stories. Even though she had read every article, and even though the blog is a representation of the bridge between the theoretical education I have received and its practical applications, it is apparent that I have missed an explicict explanation of the connection.
I started my Master's degree thinking that I would study the application of manipulatives in middle school Mathematics, specifically, how they are used in the Math Makes Sense textbooks. Now, however, some six months later, I can think of at least four other pathways that interest me. I wonder about student perceptions of gender bias in Math. I am amazed by the website "khanacademy.com" and its uses of technology to individualize education. I am, as you have read, fascinated by Foucault, and his odd little ideas of power and its impact on my day to day, and I am still curious as to the theoretical underpinnings of the use of manipulatives that is so prevalent in Math today.
Starting my Master's has shown me the educative connections to the past; why we do things the way we do. More importantly, it has changed the way I teach. I try to create more individualized alternatives to as much of the class work as I can. For example, I am teaching Human body systems in Science right now, and I am going to leave the final project up to the students. They are to demonstrate their understanding of a particular system in whatever way they wish. This is scary, but it might just work. Check back in a month or so to find out.
I also tend to sweat the small stuff a little less. I know, for example, that the curriculum we teach today is largely a direct result of the space race of the 1960s, with a broad goal of creating excellent rocketry scientists. Knowing this, I focus on students' general understanding of the material, emphasizing an individual, and intrinsic, motivation. Basically, I want my students to wonder about things, and enjoy that sense of wonderment.
What I have taken from the Ivory Tower, this sense of wonderment in learning, is now what I hope to pass on to my students. I don't care if they can't remember that a cell contains a nucleus which has 46 chromosomes bound in pairs and forming a double helix that was first discovered by James D. Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 for which they won a Nobel prize. Are they amazed that something so small works in such a way as to control something so large? That is why the Ivory Tower is important.