If you ask the average person how math was taught to them as a child, they’ll more than likely tell you that their teacher taught them how to solve problems step-by-step, but never took the time to explain the rationale for the steps.
This misguided approach to teaching math comes up often on the Radical Math Talk podcast.
In too many math classrooms, then and now, students’ burning desires to expand their knowledge beyond just working the standard computations were frowned upon, then extinguished. In my interview with Deborah Peart a few months back, she shared a story of how her fourth-grade math teacher made her fall out of love with math:
“By sixth grade, I was already over math. In math class, when I asked questions, I was being sassy.
I remember my bully from elementary school was my fourth grade teacher—not another student. I remember learning multi-digit multiplication and the question that I asked was, ‘So wait a minute, there's one zero, and then there's two zeros, and then there's three zeros. Will that go on forever? Why does that work?’ I remember being so excited and wanting to know and I remember her saying, “Stop asking so many questions and just follow the steps.”
Sadly, math stories like Deborah’s are far too common. In literacy classes, when students ask questions or express their curiosity around a passage they’re reading, teachers are more welcoming of those inquiries and will even engage in extended conversation. In science class, asking questions during a lab or experiment is highly encouraged, as it is a major part of the scientific method. In history classes, students ask questions about how the events of the past connect to or impact what’s happening in our society today.
I don’t know why this is the case, but curiosity and inquisitiveness are two qualities that simply aren’t valued enough in our math classrooms.
I always find it amazing how some teachers complain about certain students not being engaged in math class, but when those same students express the slightest appetite to deepen their knowledge about the content, they get shut down. For the record, it’s not every math teacher who engages in this behavior, but the reality is, there are too many who do.
If we’re truly committed to increasing student engagement in math class and helping students develop their math proficiency, then we must start that work with ourselves.
Our students will only go as high as the expectations we set for them. To get your mindset ready for the new school year, here are a few questions you should strongly consider:
When we fail to expose our students to all aspects of the mathematical learning experience, we cheat them out of the opportunity to be mathematically literate. How can we expect our students to appreciate the beauty of math if we limit their vision of what math truly is?
In addition to reflecting on these questions, here are a couple additional tasks you can complete:
Our students must leave our classrooms knowing that math is so much more than solving complex computations.
They must also know that math is a language. It gives us the ability to analyze data and put it in context—especially when that data is so often used to oppress us as Black and Brown people. Understanding math provides students with a lens for viewing the injustices that pervade our society.
In other words, the more we can get our most marginalized students to understand math in settings beyond the classroom, the better equipped those students will be to use math as a tool for their liberation.