Further, I found two recommendations about best practices for retention of students that I thought fit well into the topic, from a report prepared for the College Sector Committee for Adult Upgrading, a committee of the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario:

• The management of learning should lead to the development and reinforcement of the learner's control of his/her own learning.
• The management of learning should strive to build a shared power relationship in the classroom that contributes to self-esteem and self-confidence ("Best practices in managing the classroom to improve student commitment", no date).

I was interested in these final two best practices because they fit with my own ideas about teaching adults; in recent years I have thought and written about the power relationships between teacher and learner, and I have worked hard at the Reading and Writing Centre to facilitate learner control of learning. The two recommendations from Best practices in managing the classroom to improve student commitment deal with the "heartwork" of learning math, rather than the headwork. In my opinion, some of the difficulty with learning and teaching math is a neglect of the emotional or affective side of teaching and learning. The head that comes to learn math is attached to a heart, and cannot function except as the heart influences how much and what kind of work the head can do. Similarly, the head that comes to teach math is attached to a heart, and functions only in relationship to that heart, no matter how hard the head tries to deny or bury the emotions.

Reaction to the Literature

At first when I found such recommendations for instruction, such articulations of "best practices," I was taken aback. Perhaps I had been looking for a magic bullet, but I was surprised to find nothing very new. I had heard of all of these things over the years I had been teaching math to adults, and I agreed with all of them. Yet, if that was so, why did I not apply them in my teaching practice? I had certainly tried to apply many of them, perhaps even all of them, from time to time, but had been unable to make them work consistently for me. In spite of my best intentions and in spite of all the work I had done to make my teaching successful, I had often fallen back on teaching the way I was taught, tying my instruction to a text that I didn't particularly like, and focusing on getting students through the material rather than teaching for understanding.

Furthermore, I didn't know any other math instructor who was able to consistently use all of these "best practices," although I knew many who were regarded by their students and colleagues as good teachers, and who spent many hours outside of class working to improve their teaching. They, like me, had tried some or all of the strategies suggested by the experts, but were not able to consistently put them all into practice.