understanding

I’m in New York at this Math and Social Justice conference, and it’s really nice. Not just because the weather here is good, but also because it’s good to hear people talk about why teaching math is important. And how it’s connected to other aspects of life. I don’t get enough of that at my school. The general theme that I’m resonating with is that critical thinking and questioning is central to democracy, and math is a tool that we need to use to understand the issues that face our society. Students today are the voters and politicians of of tomorrow. So this is pretty broad, but also inspiring when you take a moment to zoom out and remember the ultimate outcome of all this work. It’s also inspiring to hear educators talk about their relationships with students, what it means to really listen to students and respond to their needs as learners and humans, and finally what math has to do with any of this.

I want to quote one panelist, Rico Gutstein, in saying that there are no easy answers. There is no social justice module that you drop in to your math curriculum and use. There’s no book to open up. Instead, there’s a conversation with students and with your community. I tend to go into workshops and stuff with a perspective where I’m looking for the math. Where is the math, where is the evidence that students really understand what they’re doing, and what is the process for getting them there? And when you start looking at the time spent on project-based learning and on discovery-style curriculum, the math tends to be weak. Of course, using a traditional curriculum in high-poverty demographics doesn’t perform very well either. So I’m being reminded again that the point here is to figure out to do a very difficult thing: How to bring my knowledge of math to students, and structure their time with me in such a way that they end up acquiring that knowledge of math, and have the opportunity to apply it. This is inevitably a social process, and looking at that social context honestly means trying to unravel some of these social issues. More to come, and I’m looking forward to hearing Bob Moses tonight.