Online Professional Development Sessions

No webinar tonight. Join us for our next webinar Tuesday, October 6th.

What Works in Math Intervention

Presented by Sarah Powell

Many students experience difficulty with math and require targeted math support. In this presentation, we’ll focus on the design and delivery of math intervention. We’ll review how to select critical content to teach in intervention. Then, we’ll highlight five practices (explicit instruction, precise language, multiple representations, fluency building, and problem-solving instruction) with a strong evidence base for improving math outcomes for students who experience math difficulty. By the end of this presentation, you’ll know what works in math intervention!

To register for next week’s webinar, click here!

You can always check out past and upcoming Global Math Department webinars. Click here for the archives or get the webinars in podcast form!

You can also visit our new YouTube Channel to find videos of past sessions and related content.

From the Writing Team

Gender Matters & More

Which tweets in the worlds of math education twitter go viral? Here is a recent example from @YehCathery:

And here is one sample response:

That response was pulled by @Laurie_Rubel, who continues:

The box above is to draw attention, in particular, to gender. (See also this thread for remarks that begin with Laurie Rubel pointing to joint work with Cathery Yeh.)
 
Elsewhere in the world of mathematics, the 2020 International Mathematical Olympiad (“IMO 2020”) has wrapped up. Teams can have up to six competitors; here are as many teams, ranked by score, as I could fit in a single screenshot:

Logos aside, @BristOliver remarks on the United States in a manner that, as evidenced by the above list, applies more widely:

For an item of further reading, check out physicist Athene Donald’s blog post “Of A Retiring Nature.”

(You can also find an earlier thread from me about the 3,000,000 USD Breakthrough Prizes in Mathematics for 2021 and earlier.)
 
Finally, two items around constructive happenings. First, take a look at @xyu119’s Dismantling Mathematics blog post “Virtual engagement strategies that don’t require webcams.”

Second, be aware of this upcoming conference as tweeted below by @JulietteBruce12:

Wishing strength to all who work towards justice as we enter October with a United States election like none other ahead. Register to vote, make a plan to vote; help others register to vote, help others make a plan to vote; and vote for Joe Biden – in the words of Scientific American:

— Benjamin Dickman [@benjamindickman]

NYC Schools: The Fall

Within months of hearing proposals to convert public parks into hospitals and cemeteries for coronavirus victims, teachers throughout New York City returned to our classrooms last week for virtual meetings and in-person cleaning and furniture rearranging. Within two days of our return, one of my coworkers tested positive for the virus – prompting a schoolwide two-week quarantine peppered with bouts of anxiety and daily phone surveys from the health department. Our school was, predictably, one of many schools that reported positive cases those first few days, all before a single student had set foot in the building. 
 
Protecting the hundreds of thousands of school-based NYCDOE employees and their household members should have been enough to warrant full remote instruction for at least the first few months of this school year. Clearly, our own safeties were never truly a major consideration…

… a fact that became all the more apparent last week as some teachers were required to report to work the morning after an employee tested positive. 

Celebrating all-but-mandated teacher exploitation while failing to address the systemic inequalities that we are meant to resolve is hardly new.
 

 
The standard argument for reopening would have us believe that risking teacher safety is another necessary sacrifice for addressing the virus’s disproportionate impact on low-income families of color. Emphasizing both the risk of a potentially widening achievement gap and the need for families with limited financial security to return to work, politicians such as de Blasio and Governor Cuomo have gone as far as to declare teachers essential workers rather than extending services and rent relief to families in need. (And, like other essential workers, we received multiple emails from NYCDOE Chancellor Carranza thanking us for being “heroes” in lieu of PPE and other needed supplies.) 

Without trivializing these deeply problematic financial and educational barriers, disparate educational outcomes for students of color are but one injustice to reckon with in the conversation around school reopening. Over 78% of the 121 Americans under 21 who died from COVID-19 were Black, Latino, or Native American, despite accounting for only 41% of the population, with a similar trend emerging in the total number of virus cases. Disproportionate rates of coronavirus-related illnesses and deaths are of course not limited to students, leaving low-income students of color more likely to grapple with the loss of family members as families make impossible choices between safety and financial security.  Reopening schools further complicates the decision by signaling that it is safe to do so.
 
These disparities may explain why parents opting for remote learning were disproportionately people of color: nearly 46% of black and Latino families completing the survey opted for full remote instruction, in contrast to only 33% of all white families. Over half of all Asian families throughout the city requested fully remote instruction – a result that could perhaps be explained by the ethnic makeups of the neighborhoods most dramatically affected by the virus:
 

Rather than continue to delay the start of hybrid instruction as school-based cases inevitably rise, de Blasio should demonstrate his commitment to not only all school-based staff and our families, but also our most vulnerable students and their families by mandating a fully remote start to the school year.  
 
– Nasriah Morrison [@nasriahmorrison]
 

Get Involved with the Newsletter

Our team of writers and curators is committed to produce content that is reflective of our Statement of Solidarity and with the goal of moving these words into action.

With this in mind we are calling for new volunteers to expand our perspectives and raise our collective voices to move this publication forward. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor or would like the opportunity to contribute as a guest writer, please fill out this form.

Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight!

Hands Down, Speak Out: Exploring the Crossover between Math and Literacy Talk

Presented by Kassia Omohundro Wedekind and Christy Thompson

Come learn about Hands-Down Conversations, a structure for dialogue in which students take the lead, building agency and understandings as mathematicians and readers. We’ll dig into strategies for engaging in argumentation and explore the crossover between the content areas.

To join us at 9:00 PM EST for this webinar click here!

You can always check out past and upcoming Global Math Department webinars. Click here for the archives or get the webinars in podcast form!

You can also visit our new YouTube Channel to find videos of past sessions and related content.

From the Writing Team

Modelling Care through Mathematical Routines
By: Hema Khodai (@HKhodai)
 

The thread linked above is reflective of teachings in 
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
 

Amid protests by hundreds of non-Indigenous fishermen, a First Nation in Nova Scotia, Canada launched its own self-managed commercial fishery on September 17, 2020 and issued five lobster licenses to its own members.
 
What? 
 
Mi’kmaw Chiefs have declared a State of Emergency which may be extended by the time you read this article. Trina Roache, a video journalist with APTN Investigates reports, “This is a story about how Canada handles treaty rights.” 
 
In August of 1993, Donald Marshall Jr., a Mi’kmaq man from Membertou, Nova Scotia, caught and sold 210 kg of eel with an “illegal” net and without a licence during closed-season times. He was charged, arrested, and found guilty under the federal Fisheries Act and the Maritime Provinces Fishery Regulations in provincial court (1996) and appeals court (1997). 
 
On September 17, 1999 the Supreme Court of Canada reversed Marshall’s conviction in a landmark ruling in Indigenous treaty rights. The Supreme Court recognized the hunting and fishing rights promised in the Peace and Friendship Treaties which were signed between the British and the Mi’kmaq, Wolastoqiyik, and Peskotomuhkati in 1760–61.

Video clip of a news segment aired on September 18, 2020
(Use the drop down in the upper left corner of the video feed to see 9/18)

Treaty Rights.
 
So What? 

It has been 21 years and Canada hasn’t implemented the Marshall decision which said the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy bands in Eastern Canada could hunt, fish and gather to earn a “moderate livelihood”. Why?  The court followed up with a clarification two months after the initial ruling, saying the treaty right was subject to federal regulation.
                                                                                                                                          
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans only started meeting with First Nation communities covered under the 1760-61 treaties in late 2017 to define what a moderate livelihood fishery means. Meanwhile, Mi’kmaw fishermen continue to fight the same fishery charges their fathers faced 20 years ago.

So, the Sipekne’katik First Nation developed its own management plan for a moderate livelihood fishery and kicked it off with a ceremony on the wharf in Saulnierville. The chief handed out the first license to Randy Sack, the son of the late Donald Marshall, Jr., and the Mi’kmaq headed out into St. Mary’s Bay to drop their lobster traps. The band’s management plan including conservation regulations has been submitted for approval to the federal Fisheries department.
Non-Indigenous fishermen are using intimidation tactics like following them, shooting flares, cutting traps, burning boats, smashing cars, in “protest” of the “illegal” fishery which is “out of season”. Canadian government officials are urging “calm” and “understanding” and expect resolutions that respect “the laws of this country.”

Racism.

Now What? 

Writing for the Global Math Department Newsletter has become a family affair in the Khodai household. Every third Sunday, my husband and child find me scowling into my laptop screen, furiously typing away, and often mumbling about the injustices that go unobserved and unnamed. Their breakfast preparations and routines are interrupted by my punctuated exclamations of, “Listen to this!” as I share something I have learned,  another puzzle piece that is correctly fitted to form a more complete picture of racism on this continent.
 
This particular Sunday morning, my husband asks, “What do Mi’kmaw fishermen on the East Coast have to do with Math?”
My prickly response is, “What doesn’t it have to do with Math?”
What he’s really asking (and I’m tired of answering) is how will I convert this into a math lesson? What connection will I make to the curriculum? What practical skill will I teach through this story? Will we count the number of lobster in the sea? I am more interested in these questions: How do we define “moderate”? Who should define “moderate”? Who sets the standards of “livelihood”? What are the geographic boundaries of the First Nations covered in the treaties? 
 
Is antiracism not within the domain of Math? Isn’t that the issue? That we continue to divest ourselves with all the formal education, and ‘rigorous’ training in scientific thought and advanced mathematical modeling, from justice and love? 
 
The conflict is about a definition of what a moderate livelihood means to Mi’kmaw people. It is about imposing standards of time (seasons) on peoples whose lives are not constructed in seasons. It is about imposing capitalistic ideals on peoples who have been and remain water walkers and stewards of the land. Peoples whose lands WE have settled on. Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs Co-Chair Terrance Paul says the DFO should be educating the general public on the treaty right to a moderate livelihood fishery instead of harassing Indigenous fishermen exercising their treaty rights. We proclaim in our land acknowledgements that we are all treaty people, but is anyone honouring the treaties?

We are all treaty people.
 
I sign off with this sharp reminder from my brilliant friend, Muna.

Kesalul.

References are hyperlinked and additional resources are linked below.

Mi’kmaw language instructor Curtis Michael, of Sipekne’katik First Nation in Nova Scotia, takes us through a few lessons on the language of the Mi’kmaq 

A Pitch for Intellectual Play
 

In the midst of the pandemic and a myriad of political issues, today, I’m writing about self-care.
 
How much have you played recently? It’s the beginning of the school year, and things are different, harder, take longer, and more hectic. Still, when was the last time that you played?
 
And, in particular, when was the last time that you took the time for yourself to engage in intellectual play that might renew and re-energize your interest in mathematics and teaching mathematics?
 
I recently finished the book, The Second Kind of Impossible: The Extraordinary Quest for a New Form of Matter by physicist Paul Steinhardt, and it was a much needed energizer for my work, although I am not a physicist nor do I teach physics. This book gave me greater insight into the nature of mathematics and theoretical physics — it sparked my wonder and curiosity and the power of those disciplines, and reinvigorated my passion for sparking joy in the mathematical experiences of mathematics learners.
 
I know that taking the time to do this is important, even when it is hard to find the time amidst all the chaos of work, family, housekeeping, and exercise, especially when TV is so easy. Yet, somehow, I’ve found that I’m less overwhelmed when I slow down, skip TV (or delay it), have a routine, and engage in intellectual play.
 
Here are some suggestions to get you started: “RECREATIONAL MATHEMATICS”

1. Read a chapter from a STEM novel. You won’t regret the time.
2. Head over to www.cpm.org/play and check out “Tom’s Problems.” These problems are fun and doable, very open-ended, and not a pinch. I’ve done a few myself and always feel a sense of curiosity and have multiple (sometimes premature) ah-ha moments that make me remember why I love mathematics. If you have a partner who wants do these with you or some friends who would enjoy doing together them over a video call (I know…), the collaboration makes it 10 times more fun. None of these problems require complicated mathematics, so you might even consider inviting a teen in your house to think through these with you (but only if that keeps it fun)!
3. Talk math with your kids. Or just build a tower or cook with them, using a recipe to experiment with quantity and proportion. Being interested in their thinking is the fun part!
4. Do some mathematics that remind you of that experience of mathematical uncertainty — embrace the ambiguity and allow yourself to explore different paths that may fizzle out as unproductive. Here are some places to find fun, mind-stretching problems… Maybe best done with a cozy beverage, especially if you live in a zone where the fall chill is setting in:
   1. Do some geometric puzzles! Here’s some by Catriona Agg and some more by Ed Southhall.
   2. Try out some cryptarithms for beginners or try more complex ones!
   3. Join a Math Teachers Circle (here’s one in San Jose), or create your own!

 
Maybe engaging in this kind of mathematical play will help you in your teaching, or maybe not (but, it probably will). Either way, that’s not the point of this post. In my opinion, intellectual play is what helps us move beyond feelings of surviving to feelings of thriving. Right now, the world needs people who are thriving. It can’t hurt to try!
 
Lara Jasien (@LaraJasien)
Researcher at CPM Educational Program

Get Involved with the Newsletter
 
Our team of writers and curators is committed to produce content that is reflective of our Statement of Solidarity and with the goal of moving these words into action.
 
With this in mind we are calling for new volunteers to expand our perspectives and raise our collective voices to move this publication forward. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor or would like the opportunity to contribute as a guest writer, please fill out this form.

Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight at 9:00 EST

Using DeltaMath for Distance Learning

Presented by Zach Korzyk

DeltaMath has long been a free tool used to give automatic and detailed feedback to students for math practice on over 1400 different math problem types. Given the current health crisis, this immediate feedback is more important than ever. This session will cover the basics of creating assignments and viewing student results. We will also discuss the newer features of DeltaMath Plus that give the teachers a lot more flexibility in creating assignments: attaching videos to assignments, creating an online test and writing your own questions on DeltaMath.

Join us at 9:00 PM EST.  Click here to register!

You can always check out past and upcoming Global Math Department webinars. Click here for the archives or get the webinars in podcast form!

You can also visit our new YouTube Channel to find videos of past sessions and related content.

From the Writing Team

It was never just about the math, but always about the love

There are two quotes that I keep close to my heart and revisit before I begin teaching a math lesson. I don’t always say them, sometimes I recite them in my head less than perfectly, but they are always present in my actions and choices. 

The first: “I have never encountered any children in any group who are not geniuses. There is no mystery on how to teach them. The first thing you do is treat them like human beings and the second thing you do is love them.” – Asa G. Hilliard III

The second: ““The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.” – Paolo Freire 

The first took me years to learn, to fully understand, and I confess that I am understanding what it means still in every interaction I have with a child on a learning journey.

The second is something I’ve felt in my marrow since I started this journey, this way of knowing and being that is in communion with younger souls and on their infinite possibilities. They are still unfurling, they are still growing and finding their own places in the sun. (and if I pause and reflect for more than a minute, so am I)

When I teach, I am in the forever nebulous terrain of learning, of wandering and wondering with my students.

Once upon a time, Robert Frost penned this poem: 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I think about this in the context of mathematics – of pathways and pickings – that mathematics is not a well-trodden road, on which we set children to carefully and delicately follow. It is in the wildness of things we find possibilities for the most joy. 

It is not a well-paved road, overseen by a monotonous guide intoning highlights in the driest of voices.

Mathematics is a finding. It is a gleaning. My job as head math witch is to show the magic of possibilities. Here – juicy berries burst delicately upon the tongue. There, look, a potential pathway.

But mostly, my job is to whisper softly “Observe. Look at the way the red cardinal flies. What do you find beautiful about it?” or to remark “Goodness, I am so proud of this glen we have stumbled across together, for we could not have found it without you.”

My job is to make the mundane sacred. There is a kind of holiness in exploration and all adventures alike. The delight of a first geometric construction or the hundredth.

The joy that follows – a shared basket of stolen apricots, a ripening, a mutual endeavor. I look for ways to make this happen – but, with all things, adventures are also not always pleasant; sometimes in the thorns and thickets of our explorations, we fail to find a pathway forward. We get frustrated with one another — what started off as a sunny excursion is full of biting horseflies, that despite our best attempts to wave them away, we cannot get rid of.

The adventure has changed now. We are in a new portal, trekking across a digital realm together. The world, which has not been safe or kind for so many already, especially for those that have been blessed by the sun’s kiss on their dark skin, has become even more precarious. An axis tilted ever further to its side. We who seek balance are spinning off-kilter. 

​So, within this topsy-turvy landscape, some questions must be prepared for, and planned for:

These are my essential questions when I set off upon a new journey. Each and every time:

1. How do I love you as you explore? How do I demonstrate that love with kindness, with patience, with grace? 
2. How do I hold my hands, so golden brown these days, as footholds upon which you clamber? To make your own way? 
3. How do I show you that in failing, there is a lesson? One about yourself and the possible imaginaries of the world around you?

 

These are not quantifiable questions. They cannot be measured by standardized testing. They cannot be tied to funding. They cannot be visualized in sterilized graphs by those who have never set foot in an educational space.

…and yet they matter just the same. 

​~ Sara Rezvi (@arsinoepi)

Get Involved with the Newsletter

Our team of writers and curators is committed to produce content that is reflective of our Statement of Solidarity and with the goal of moving these words into action.

With this in mind we are calling for new volunteers to expand our perspectives and raise our collective voices to move this publication forward. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor or would like the opportunity to contribute as a guest writer, please fill out this form.

Online Professional Development Sessions

No webinar tonight. Join us for our next webinar Tuesday, September 15th.

Using DeltaMath for Distance Learning

Presented by Zach Korzyk

DeltaMath has long been a free tool used to give automatic and detailed feedback to students for math practice on over 1400 different math problem types. Given the current health crisis, this immediate feedback is more important than ever. This session will cover the basics of creating assignments and viewing student results. We will also discuss the newer features of DeltaMath Plus that give the teachers a lot more flexibility in creating assignments: attaching videos to assignments, creating an online test and writing your own questions on DeltaMath.

To register for next week’s webinar, click here!

You can always check out past and upcoming Global Math Department webinars. Click here for the archives or get the webinars in podcast form!

You can also visit our new YouTube Channel to find videos of past sessions and related content.

From the Writing Team

Relationships in a Virtual Space 

As the Fall 2020 school semester blooms, my Twitter feed has been full of different educators mentioning different aspects of teaching during this pandemic. Mostly, it has been teachers airing their frustrations with virtual learning. And rightfully so. Teaching is already a tough job without the added layer of navigating and learning the virtual world. Every time I read a Tweet about how to take virtual attendance or students not turning on their cameras while in a Zoom class, all I can think about is one word – relationship.

Rita Pierson said in her Ted Talk way back in 2013, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” This quote has stuck with me over the years. Over the past few years, sometimes when I was working with teachers, it would pop into my mind. Now, during 2020, I’ve been thinking about it in context of making sure students know they are accepted and that they matter.
 
A person I just recently started following on Twitter, Jennifer Binis (@JennBinis) is the master of #PairedTexts. She always has a way of putting two tweets or articles together that are related. The way she does it always has me thinking and learning. Taking that idea, here are two tweets I saw individually that have me really learning and thinking. I thought they might make good #PairedTexts.
 
The first tweet I saw was from Jose Vilson (@TheJLV) reacting to a news story in Houston where a teacher was put on leave for posting Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ posters in her virtual classroom.

Then just the other day I saw this thread from Idil Abdulkadir (@Idil_A_) where she is discussing her experiences with these types of posters and what they mean to the individuals we are trying to welcome by posting them.

Both of these Tweets still have me thinking about that one word again – relationship. Maya Angelou has this quote, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
 
One last tweet that I saw this past week was from Howie Hua (@howie_hua). In this thread Howie is sharing some things he has been doing in the virtual setting that his students say they appreciate. Perhaps within this thread is an idea for you to help with that one word – relationship.
 

by Amber Thienel (@amberthienel)

#TMWYF: Talk Math with Your Friends 

In March 2020, in response to a sense of loss of both mathematics and community, we created an online math colloquium series we call Talk Math With Your Friends (#TMWYF). Our series features presentations on mathematics, math education, and other topics of interest to the broader math community. We have featured talks on research exposition, course design, pedagogical techniques, mathematical outreach, and more. As organizers, our goal is to cultivate a lively, friendly, interactive environment, and so each talk includes a few “featured friends” who remain unmuted to interact directly with the speaker during the talk. Some talks have utilized breakout rooms, polls, and other forms of interactivity. Many of the talks have been recorded and are available on the TMWYF YouTube channel.

Here’s a brief summary of just three highlights from TMWYF:

• Disrupting Settler Colonial Mindsets in Mathematics (September 3): In the most recent talk, Dr. Belin Tsinnajinnie (@LoboWithACause) of Santa Fe Community College spoke about how ongoing Diversity and Inclusion initiatives in mathematics perpetuate the settler colonial mindsight by seeing Native people as resources to extract, rather than recognizing the already existing mathematics within or serving the goals of these communities.

• Designing and Deploying “Math that Matters” (May 14): Professor Jessica Libertini (@DrMathL) of Virginia Military Institute spoke about a curriculum redesign project for mathematics courses at her institution. The attendees at TMWYF were able to participate in several group activities from the “Math that Matters” course.

• From Clocks to Categories (June 25): Andrew Stacey (@mathforge) describes himself as “Mathematician: formally academic (differential topology), currently educational (secondary UK).” One of his aims is to bridge the gap between school mathematics and the mathematical ideas typically introduced in graduate-level coursework. In his talk, he showed how category theory can be accessible to students even early in their mathematical studies and how that perspective helps him and his secondary students.

 
We invite everyone to attend and enjoy TMWYF. At present, we meet over Zoom each Thursday afternoon 12:30PM Pacific/3:30PM Eastern. Information about our upcoming talks, including our Zoom link, abstracts of talks, and speaker information, is available on our website.
 
Additionally, if you have an idea for a talk, please send in an abstract! We welcome talks on any topic for a mathematically interested audience. We particularly encourage submissions from members of underrepresented communities and also from early career mathematicians. You can submit abstracts on our website.
 
The organizing team of TMWYF hopes you’ll join us. Our next talk on September 10th (3:30-4:30 Eastern, 12:30-1:30 Pacific) features Jessie Oehrlin (@numberdance), applied mathematics graduate student at Columbia University

• Using Climate Models to Understand Stratosphere-Troposphere Interaction

  Earth’s atmosphere is a multi-scale, coupled, nonlinear system. We care about everything from clouds here and now to global temperature in 2100. The state of the atmosphere depends on ocean, land, and ice conditions as well as external factors like emissions. Nonlinearity means that information from initial conditions is near-useless after two weeks. And the atmosphere is really hard to do experiments on. It’s great. I’ll talk briefly about how different kinds of weather and climate models capture various temporal and spatial scales, with predictability coming from different sources. Then I’ll focus on the bottom two layers of the atmosphere, the troposphere and the stratosphere: how they interact, why their interaction affects our winter climate, and how we use models to answer our questions about them.

 
The Zoom link for this talk, and a calendar of future events, can be found on our website.

This article written by the current organizers of TMWYF:

• Tien Chih, Montana State University-Billings (@TChihMath)
• T.J. Hitchman, University of Northern Iowa (@ProfNoodlearms)
• Brian Katz, CSU Long Beach (@thewordninja_bk)
• Drew Lewis, University of South Alabama (@siwelwerd)
• Kate Owens, College of Charleston (@katemath)

Get Involved with the Newsletter

Our team of writers and curators is committed to produce content that is reflective of our Statement of Solidarity and with the goal of moving these words into action.

With this in mind we are calling for new volunteers to expand our perspectives and raise our collective voices to move this publication forward. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor or would like the opportunity to contribute as a guest writer, please fill out this form.

Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight!

Feedback without Fatigue

Presented by Christine Koerner

We know that feedback is essential for student learning, but how do we provide it without constantly giving up hours of our time? In this presentation, educators will learn about providing meaningful feedback and explore resources that help provide instant/ timely feedback. Considerations will be made for school-based, hybrid, and distance learning environments.

To join us at 9:00 PM EST for this webinar click here!

You can always check out past and upcoming Global Math Department webinars. Click here for the archives or get the webinars in podcast form!

You can also visit our new YouTube Channel to find videos of past sessions and related content.

From the Writing Team

Beauty and Justice in Mathematics Education
 

With schools and universities opening back up, how do educators get back to business as usual? If we turn on the news, we hear about the shooting of Jacob Blake (among countless told and untold stories of police violence in the U.S. and around the world), the deaths of protestors on all sides of the political spectrum, the effects of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, the passing away of a hero, Chadwick Boseman, for many children and adults, the ongoing lack of justice for Breonna Taylor, and now reports that many teachers are leaving the profession due to coronavirus and remote teaching concerns. 
 
How do any of us—educators, staff, students, parents, administrators—get back to business as usual given the conflicts, tensions, and ecological crises we face? 
 
Maybe the answer is: we don’t.
 
To be sure, we have students in front of us physically or in little boxes and we have to teach them. But the current climate also affords us an opportunity to rethink our priorities. Francis Su (@mathyawp) and Jordan Ellenberg (@JSEllenberg), for example, invite us to reconsider the time we spend training students to rationalize the denominator.

Instead of going back to the usual routine of guiding students through a minefield of mindless computation and standardized test prep (which many teachers, in all fairness, are under great pressure to do), we might allow ourselves to envision a more purposeful role of math education in the lives of our students and our communities. What part should math and math classrooms play during times of crisis? 
 
Over the summer, two trends in Math Ed Twitter captured my attention: 
 
(1) the promotion of art and beauty in mathematics, most notably through the Math Art Challenges posed by Annie Perkins (@anniek_p), and 
 
(2) the promotion of social justice and anti-racism through math education, notably Dr. Nicole Joseph’s (@projnicolej) work on Black Feminist Mathematics Pedagogies, Benjamin Dickman’s (@benjamindickman) algebra 2 social justice curriculum, Dr. Kari Kokka’s (@karikokka) compilation of social justice mathematics and science resources, and former NCTM president Dr. Robert Berry’s (@robertqberry) ongoing work with mathematics for social justice (among the contributions of many others who I have missed).
 
Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) and Francis Su (@mathyawp) remind us that justice (and injustice) and beauty (and the lack of beauty) occur every day in classrooms and are within our reach. Knowing that justice and beauty, or the lack thereof, are always evident in our classrooms, we can ask ourselves: how can we be more purposeful in the roles that our math classrooms play toward helping students recognize and create beauty and justice in our world? 
 
This is one of the things that I study in my grad school program in education. How can the aesthetics of math and math education, including but not limited to notions of beauty, be both reimagined and deployed in service of a more just and sustainable world? 
 
I don’t have all of the answers, and I probably never will. But I believe that math teachers are at the forefront of addressing this question and other questions like it due to a dual commitment and love toward students and mathematics as a field. 
 
p.s. I love this tweet:

bye, bye, bye
@melvinmperalta

Bidirectional Grace
 

Our students are going through a lot right now. When I asked a few students in my community what they wanted their math teachers to know or do, though, they recognized that teachers, too, have a really hard year ahead of them. These students have been doing online instruction since March, and are now in the third week of school for the fall 2020 semester. Two main themes came up in their responses over and over: First, give students grace, because they are facing very trying circumstances, and second, give yourself grace.
 
As Black students face an onslaught of video-recorded terrorism, Black, Indigenous, and Latin* students face disproportionate losses from COVID-19, and Asian American students face increased racism, an extra measure of grace in the learning of math this year is really important. Students appreciated teachers who recognize the specific challenges of their communities. A student who wanted us to call him “No” asks teachers to understand that many are “dealing with other home problems and personal problems” so please allow for absences, late assignments, or even just small concessions like cameras off when such things come up. He lists many challenges burdening students, such as financial hardships, lack of WiFi, added work hours to help the family, and worries about the pandemic. “No” adds, “Have an abundance of leeway for students. You never know the other factors going on in their life.” Almost all students mentioned slow or inconsistent internet access, and “Ren” requested that teachers keep synchronous assignments concise for this reason.
 
After asking for this grace, though, students extended the same to teachers. Ren responded, “To every math teacher, you are doing absolutely fantastic and patient with dealing with people who are trying their best to succeed.” “MM” added, “As hard as it is for students to adapt to all of this I cannot imagine coordinating online lessons and having blank faces stare back at you on a zoom screen. Us students really do appreciate all your hard work!” Teaching is hard under the best of circumstances, and this year, it is herculean. I hope that these student voices remind you to be understanding and empathetic as students deal with these challenges, and also remind you to extend yourself the same grace. This is an unprecedented challenge, but they see and appreciate your efforts. Ren concludes, “Every teacher has done everything they can to keep us safe and secure.”

Written by Samantha Marshall (@sammieamarshall)

Get Involved with the Newsletter
 
Our team of writers and curators is committed to produce content that is reflective of our Statement of Solidarity and with the goal of moving these words into action.
 
With this in mind we are calling for new volunteers to expand our perspectives and raise our collective voices to move this publication forward. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor or would like the opportunity to contribute as a guest writer, please fill out this form.

Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight!

The Expert Within You and Your Math Students

Presented by Andrew Stadel

Students and teachers are encountering a bizarre and uncharted world of education. The reality is that no one is an expert right now. NO ONE! Let’s collaborate on strategies that spark meaningful conversations in our math classes so teachers and students can experience the best connection possible.

To join us at 9:00 PM EST for this webinar click here!

You can always check out past and upcoming Global Math Department webinars. Click here for the archives or get the webinars in podcast form!

You can also visit our new YouTube Channel to find videos of past sessions and related content.

From the Writing Team

Seeing Systems
 

I wrote this piece before hearing about the unjustified shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. When will it end?
 
You may have seen this scale before. It helps to analyze where you are in your unlearning of racism through your actions and words. My question to you regarding the graphic is not where you are, it’s where have you moved FROM.

Where were you when you heard about Tamir Rice? Where were you on the scale when they started removing Confederate statues?

And with Breonna Taylor? Ahmaud Arberry? George Floyd? And now Jacob Blake? 

Do you consistently have to “wait for the details” to know whether or not you feel the shooting of an unarmed individual was just? Does it require the end of human life for you to move or is there a way to have you move against racism without the consequence of death to so many Black lives?

Reflect on where you were and where you want to be, and the COST it has taken to move you so far. Realize that the cost to move you on this scale is HIGH, and yet, we need you to move in order for “justice for all” to be attainable. 

…

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arberry, the world banned together to address the injustice of their murders at the hands of members associated with law enforcement. Thousands of human beings joined in solidarity to demand justice for their deaths, while also showing that the system that allowed these deaths to occur needs to be disrupted, dismantled, and redesigned. For many people, this moment caused an awakening to how systems have been built to support racial injustice, oppressing the many while privileging the few. In the aftermath, I have listened to educators wonder about how they could understand the injustices often sustained by such systems, how they impact their classroom and practice, and where to begin. 
 
Understanding systems requires historical knowledge to understand the foundations upon which systems were created and who they were created to serve. For many Americans, this requires significant unlearning, as our K-12 schools often teach a palatable history in exchange for a truthful one. Look no further than the Twitter response to the first episode of Watchmen in which thousands of Americans first learned about the Tulsa massacre of 1921, or this summer when Twitter exploded when it realized that Juneteenth was about more than just a family cookout. It was as if people had an eye exam and could finally see clearly that there were reasons for why they never learned about either of those historical events in their K-12 education.  

Unlearning false history requires real work and real time. For one, unlearning false history requires the decentering of one’s own experiences to realize that, well frankly, you’re not the only one on the planet and that people’s experiences vary. Our opinions and beliefs are built from what we know, and what we know is largely shaped by our experiences. The vision to be able to see past one’s personal experiences to understand how existing systems are at work requires practice, especially when you benefit from the system remaining in place.
 

With everything going on these days between the opening of school during a pandemic to the natural disasters happening across the continent, we are all doing a lot of cognitive juggling.  Recalling the way you felt in May or June may be difficult, but it is important that you try. Those that benefit when the system remains in place are banking on you forgetting how you felt in May, on the conversations you had with fellow educators, and the questions you asked then. Those in power are counting on your amnesia and the current distractions of the daily job so that the system will remain intact, unquestioned, untroubled. I invite you to a moment of pause and reflection, to practice the work of seeing systems as you begin the year. 

 
Here are a few questions to guide your reflection: 

• How are systems based on race, gender, and/or class evident in my classroom? My school? My district? My state? 
• Who benefits from those systems being in place? 
• Who is oppressed by the continuation of those systems? 

 
Lauren Baucom
@LBmathemagician

Get Involved with the Newsletter
 
Our team of writers and curators is committed to produce content that is reflective of our Statement of Solidarity and with the goal of moving these words into action.
 
With this in mind we are calling for new volunteers to expand our perspectives and raise our collective voices to move this publication forward. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor or would like the opportunity to contribute as a guest writer, please fill out this form.

Online Professional Development Sessions

No webinar for this week.
You can always check out past and upcoming Global Math Department webinars. Click here for the archives or get the webinars in podcast form!

Join us for next week’s webinar by Andrew Stadel

The Expert Within You and Your Math Students

Students and teachers are encountering a bizarre and unchartered world of education. The reality is that no one is an expert right now. NO ONE! Let’s collaborate on strategies that spark meaningful conversations in our math classes so teachers and students can experience the best connection possible.

This Week’s Newsletter

#GMDWrites: Co/Authors & Co/Conspirators

Part of releasing the Global Math Department solidarity statement meant returning to it over the course of this summer (Zoom, email, google docs galore) to draft action items. One of the action items for our Newsletter, in particular, is to bring in more voices to contribute to the GMD – whether through a guest post or as a regular contributor. I’m honored to have been connected with Allison Krasnow for her very timely guest post this week (below).
 
The upcoming academic year is shaping up to be like none other. It is important to maintain a record of the happenings in and around the worlds of education. If you are willing to lend your voice to the GMD Newsletter, then we ask that you check out this form or, if you have questions, contact an individual member. (My DMs are open.)
 
It has also been a summer like none other, and there is far too much to say in one entry. Here I mention only two items. If you haven’t seen it already (and even if you have – I watched it twice) head over to the homepage for TODOS and listen to the talk from Olga G. Torres. If you want a link timestamped to the start (9:41) you can also click here (from a tweet of mine that is full of multiply-embedded tweets and links).

 
We must also mention, with heavy hearts, the loss of a wonderful, well-known member of numerous math education communities – #MTBoS, Math for America, the Global Math Department, and many others – Wendy Menard (@wmukluk)

In this thread, you can find a small selection of Wendy’s writing. You can also find a piece about Wendy’s retirement from her school of the past 8 years that was written in February, and entitled Ms. Menard Concludes a Heartfelt Career. It is a privilege to write in the GMD Newsletter and know that Wendy shared so much of her wisdom in its earlier years.
 
For now, here is just one more piece about Wendy, as written poignantly by José Vilson:

 
Here’s to hoping that Fall of 2020 and beyond will allow us to continue to celebrate the lives and work of those who raise us up and help us become better versions of ourselves.
 
by Benjamin Dickman @benjamindickman

A Call to Math Educators: Hollaback!

 
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
                                                                     – Archbishop Desmond Tutu
 
Recently, a colleague of color shared with me that some of their Tweets had been published without permission in a right-wing publication. This act of using someone’s words without permission is an attack on one’s humanity and personal safety. The act causes emotional and mental trauma, on top of a constant fear of personal and professional harm.
 
I realized that I needed to be able to offer a lot more than empathetic words. I was seeking more ways to act so that the emotional and physical labor required to respond to harassment could be held by as great a community force as possible. Taking anti-racist actions, instead of simply thinking anti-racist thoughts was a place I needed more tools. 
 
Reaching out to my city’s local newspaper, Berkeleyside, I asked if there was someone there who could help me learn what recourse any of us can have in this situation and what our legal rights are. She suggested that I take a course from Hollaback!, an organization whose mission is “to end harassment in all its forms by transforming the culture that perpetuates hate and harassment.” Hollaback! has a bystander training guide and an extensive series of Bystander Training workshops. They also run a website where you can report online harassment and receive support on next steps.
 
I took their course on bystander intervention to address anti-Asian-American and xenophonic harassment. In the training they ask that we not record or reproduce screenshots as they want to encourage everyone to take a training in person and not simply read about it. Definitely do that.
 
One striking piece of data was from a 2019 study which found that when harassed, 79% of people surveyed said they wished someone had stepped in to help them when, in reality, only 15% of people actually received help. I wonder how many had friends, like me, who at times had only the hollow response of “I’m so sorry.”
 
There is a spectrum of types of harassment and by ignoring things we hear that are lower on the spectrum it can often allow greater forms of harassment to go unchecked. For example, in February, UC Berkeley’s Health Center posted an infographic on social media stating that xenophobia in response to Covid-19 was a normal reaction. That reporting has since been retracted, but is an example of how harassment can become normalized.
 
The focus of the course was on the 5Ds of Bystander Intervention:

• Distract: De-escalate by drawing attention away from the situation, start a conversation with the person being harassed, ask directions, drop something.
• Delegate: Consider your power in that space and if necessary, ask someone nearby to help out.
• Document: Take screenshots as often online harassment is removed before it can be recorded; film by pretending you are checking your email. Give the documentation to the person who was harassed so they have the choice of what to do with it.  Never post video without permission from the person who was harassed as they may not want to relive the experience. Always first offer to help the person being harassed before you document it.
• Delay: Check in with the person who experienced the harassment and see if they are ok.  Ask: Can I sit with you? Can I accompany you somewhere? What do you need? 
• Direct: Insert yourself directly into the situation. Name the behavior, name what you observe and ask a question.

 The key is not having the PERFECT response but simply having A response. This really resonates with me. In different situations depending on how well I know the person being harassed (if at all), where it takes place, and whether or not it’s online would cause me to react differently. But having so many possible ways to intervene, some direct and some indirect, means that so many more of us can hold ourselves accountable for ALWAYS responding.
 
The bystander training offerings through Hollaback! are extensive. You can read about them all here. Have you witnessed or had a friend or colleague tell you they were harassed, in person or online, and not known what to do? Online harassment particularly towards members of our Twitter math community is happening all around us. Can we commit, as an online community of math educators, to taking action? 
 
As a community of math educators, let’s hold ourselves accountable to always responding because saying “I’m sorry” and offering to listen when we know someone who has been harassed is kind, but not anti-racist. If, like me, you are white, we are the ones who must ensure we are constantly ready to act because we don’t necessarily deal with the microaggressions and extreme trauma that so many of our colleagues of color have repeatedly faced. Having a variety of ways to intervene ensures that the emotional toll and physical time required to respond to these incidents is spread wider amongst us. Through consistent, collective action we gain power, as a community, to address and prevent harassment in all of its awful forms.
 
by Allison Krasnow @allison_krasnow

Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight!

Talk Less, Discuss More: Crafting and Implementing Open Ended Questions

Presented by Scott Miller and David Sladkey

Are you looking for ways to enhance questioning in your classroom? Do you wonder how to include open-ended tasks on a daily basis in online, blended, and in-person learning models? Experience a variety of types of questions that promote student thinking and learn how to create questions that facilitate student discussion.

To join us at 9:00 PM EST for this webinar click here!

You can always check out past and upcoming Global Math Department webinars. Click here for the archives or get the webinars in podcast form!

The Newsletter Returns

The GMD Newsletter Returns for 2020
 

We are happy to announce that all the contributors to the GMD Newsletter are returning this school year with an increased focus on antiracist mathematics education.
 
Our team of writers and curators is committed to produce content that is reflective of our Statement of Solidarity and with the goal of moving these words into action.
 
With this in mind we are also calling for new volunteers to expand our perspectives and raise our collective voices to move this publication forward. If you are interested in becoming a regular contributor or would like the opportunity to contribute as a guest writer, please fill out this form.

Rest as Self Care

By: Hema Khodai (@HKhodai)
 

I constantly and continually fail at disrupting grind culture. It is a new practice to me, who glorified it not too long ago, measured my worth by it, and judged others by their inability to excel within it. Some label it as ascribing to the model minority myth, the desire to mitigate racial violence by leaning into whiteness. Some identify it as an immigrant mindset, an inheritance from those who traveled over distant lands and seas for a chance at survival. Some name it as a remnant of indentured servitude, memory that lives in bloodlines of survival inextricably linked to productivity. Some say I exemplify grit and resilience and have overcome so much adversity in my personal life. These romanticized notions of self-liberation through determination and hard work enmesh us deeper in capitalism, they lack a precision of language I attend to: grind culture is rooted in white supremacy.

Here are some ways complicity in grind culture appears in our lives with prompts to disrupt them:

Math is Political

That’s it. That’s the article.
 
Sometimes, when people see the statement ‘math is political’ they either scratch their heads or run for the hills. What on earth does 2+2=4 have to do with politics?
 
Well, it turns out a lot. As an ongoing Twitter debacle about 2+2=4 makes evident, math has a lot to do with politics. I won’t link any threads or articles about the 2+2=4 issue because many of them appear to miss a significant point: a widespread philosophical argument about mathematical foundations and objective truth has been built on a foundation of harassment aimed at educators of color, many who are women. 
 
Prominent articles and Twitter threads, while helping people become more receptive to a more “playful mathematics” and understand mathematics’ cultural dimensions, are also contributing to an erasure of women of color by prioritizing mathematics over them and the ideas they are actually trying to promote. These ideas include promoting critical mathematics education, anti-racism, ethnomathematics, rehumanizing mathematics, ethnic studies, and social justice math, among many others. Here’s a collection of things to look out for or look more deeply into:

• Last Saturday, Dr. Nicole Joseph (@projnicolej) and Dr. Luis Leyva (@LuisLeyvaEdu) led the Math & Anti-Racism session of the National Educators for Anti-Racism Conference. Summaries of the conference can be found through the Educators for Anti-Racism Twitter account (@EdAntiRacism). Rachel Ernest (@rachelernst) has a thread about it. Conference attendees were asked to read Dr. Rochelle Gutiérrez’s (@RG1gal) article entitled Risky Business: Mathematics Teachers Using Creative Insubordination.

• Today (August 11) is the TODOS live session with Dr. Rochelle Gutiérrez where participants will reflect on ways to rehumanize mathematics. The live session will take place at 4pm PST / 7pm EST. Registration can be found through this tweet from TODOS.

• Benjamin Dickman (@benjamindickman) is looking for collaborators for an Algebra 2 social justice curriculum.

• Dr. Kari Kokka (@karikokka) has compiled a Social Justice Mathematics and Science Resources google doc.

• Dr. Tia Madkins (@ProfTiaMadkins) has compiled a list of Resources for Understanding and Supporting #BlackLivesMatter

If you want to support these efforts and the people who stand behind them, consider deeply engaging with the scholarship on critical math education, anti-racism, and ethnomathematics, encouraging others to do the same, and supporting school teachers who want to apply these ideas in the classroom. Recent events have taught me an important lesson, one that I have recently felt a visceral level: silence is complicity. Math educators are part of the same community, and while we may not necessarily agree on everything (which I believe actually makes us stronger), it is important that we step in and speak up for one another.
 
What’s one thing that the coronavirus and racism, homophobia, patriarchy, ableism, and postcolonialism have in common? Too many people still think they don’t exist. How will we as educators of math–the supposed last bastion of ‘rationality’ and ‘truth’–respond?
 

@melvinmperalta

Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight!

Math Workshop in Synchronous Online Classes

Presented by Theresa Wills

How do you continue your small group collaboration and discussion while teaching online? Through math workshop of course. Learn how to implement math workshop in the synchronous online classroom. Create small group interactive experiences that give every student a voice. Give students the agency to own their learning through choice of differentiated activities. Learn quick and easy technology strategies that work across multiple computer platforms to meet the needs of all learners.

To join us at 9:00 PM EST for this webinar click here!

Next Week 

Revolution is Needed in High School Geometry

Presented by Dr. Jenny Tsankova

Dr. Jenny Tsankova will present an argument in favor of changing the way we communicate to students the following essential ideas: 1) the idea of proof, 2) the language of Geometry, and 3) the traditional topics we teach, such as constructing the perpendicular bisector. The goal is for the mathematical ideas to be accessible to all students, connected to other mathematical ideas, and embedded in relevant context without sacrificing the cognitive demand.

Register ahead of time by clicking here!

You can always check out past and upcoming Global Math Department webinars. Click here for the archives or get the webinars in podcast form!

More From GMD

2021 and Beyond

By: Hema Khodai

I have been a (sporadic) writer for the Global Math Department Newsletter for a year now. When I started I was very self-conscious about entering a new maths space and weary of navigating another set of relationships with folx I had never met. I was unsure about my writing; technique, content, tone, audience, … all of it. Additionally, I hyper focused on how my pieces would be received. I had no sense of reach and no way to gage reactions outside of the five people that faithfully read my pieces and commented on them. My unarticulated purpose was to push the boundaries of comfort for mathematics educators and my articulated fear was of offending the same community I sought to belong to. It’s nearly impossible to write under this level of stress.

So, I redirect my focus to the perspective I bring to the newsletter through connections to Canadian contexts and prepare to lift my voice to speak messages that center students. But I remain anxious, unknowing how I by way of my writing will be received. 

As I write this piece, I imagine children sitting in spaces of mathematics education and draw parallels to weary students in a maths class that feels foreign; impenetrable. Unsure. Uneasy. Anxious. Insecure.  

Last week @GlobalMathDept issued a statement and meetings are already scheduled to organize and plan concrete actions in solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement. There is a deep exhale that occurs when a community you are a part of takes a bold stance against anti-Black racism. The writers of this statement agonized over every word and phrase to attend to the precision of their commitment. They grappled with their feelings and intentions but instead of languishing in them they take a purposeful step in the direction of the impact they want to have. It is a breath of fresh air, a moment of relief that I do not have to endure and persist alone. It is the single tear that escapes as I finally allow myself to feel the sheer exhaustion of the last few weeks, months, years, decades, lifetimes, … let’s face it – four centuries.

So, I return to the mental image of children sitting at desks, swallowing down the bile that accompanies microaggressions, suppressing the sting of a thousand daily cuts, numb from rejections both public and private, frozen in terror by the news of brutality, violence, lynchings, and death that swirls about them. The children that sit at desks waiting for acknowledgement of their continual state of pain and grief. 

For the love of mathematics, say something. 

GMD Newsletter Breaks for Summer

This will be the final edition of the Global Math Department Newsletter for the year.  We would like to take a moment to thank all of our subscribers for joining us in learning from the world of math education this year.

Over the summer we will be working to build action plans to support the efforts listed in our Solidarity Statement, with specific regard to math education and anti-racist practices.

We wish you all the best during the break and look forward to returning in August stronger than ever.

Online Professional Development Sessions

Tonight!

Global Mathematics: An Elective Mathematics Class for ALL Students

Presented by 

Dave Ebert

This session will describe how one school created an elective course, Global Mathematics, that helps students understand and critique the world while also experiencing wonder, joy, and beauty. This course engages students at every ability level through the study of the history of mathematics and the usefulness of mathematics to address global, regional, and local issues.

To join us at 9:00 PM EST for this webinar click here!

Next Week 

Math Workshop in Synchronous Online Classes

Presented by 

Theresa Wills

How do you continue your small group collaboration and discussion while teaching online? Through math workshop of course. Learn how to implement math workshop in the synchronous online classroom. Create small group interactive experiences that give every student a voice. Give students the agency to own their learning through choice of differentiated activities. Learn quick and easy technology strategies that work across multiple computer platforms to meet the needs of all learners.

Register for the webinar here, and join us next week!

You can always check out past and upcoming Global Math Department webinars. Click here for the archives or get the webinars in podcast form!

From the World of Math Ed

Looking Back and Looking Forward

At the 2018 NCTM Annual Meeting, Danny Bernard Martin gave the Iris M. Carl Equity Address, titled “Taking a Knee in Mathematics Education.” Toward the end of the talk, in response to an audience question, Martin spoke about the phenomenon of “solution on demand.” Solution on demand is when, once racism is surfaced, the response is to ask a person of color what to do and how to solve it. Martin wrote on this topic in a 2009 paper:

“Such a demand not only trivializes the complexities of race, racism, and racialization, but also the experiences of those affected. In essence, it is a way to retreat from race and resists the realities of racism by reducing the harms to simple problems with simple solutions. My hesitancy to provide a specific answer is not meant to suggest that no solutions exist. But top-down, externally generated solutions that are not responsive to the needs and conditions of the context in question are unlikely to have a meaningful effect” (304).

I am a white teacher, and I am sitting with both the urgency of action and the necessity of doing my own internal work to better understand racism in America. I am also trying to remember that people of color have been doing the work for a long time, and there are already lots of places to learn without burdening people of color who are doing the most right now. Martin’s session is absolutely worth revisiting. Looking outside the world of math education, I enjoyed rewatching this panel of Black YA authors talking about justice, resistance, and positive representation. The panel is also from 2018 and is another reminder that the work is not new, no matter how many people have shown up for the first time in the last two weeks.

(thanks to Marian Dingle for sharing the video)

In addition to doing my internal work, I am thinking about how to make change in my school, within my sphere of influence. I’m rereading Paul Gorski’s article “Avoiding Racial Equity Detours.”  The detour I see most in my school is what Gorski calls “Pacing-for-Privilege.” He writes, “In too many schools, the pace of equity progress prioritizes the comfort and interests of people who have the least interest in that progress” (57). I want to practice speaking up to prioritize equity for students, rather than comfort for adults. What detours do you see in your school, and where can you exert your influence?

Finally, I want to share Jose Vilson’s most recent blog post, “Black Teachers Are Good For More Than Race Stuff.”  As education communities decide to do more to center justice and equity, we are at risk of essentializing Black educators as equity workers. Jose reminds us: “Let me lay this to rest. Black teachers can be experts at their given content area and its pedagogies, not just as delegates for our entire race and their experiences.”



Written by Dylan Kane

#MathPhoto20

The Math Photo Challenge is a series of 10 weekly photo prompts posted to Twitter. Each week, participants take photos inspired by that week’s prompt and then share them on Twitter using the hashtag #MathPhoto20. This challenge is a fun way to interact with teachers, students, family members and others. Anyone can check out the collection of photos on Twitter by searching the hashtag #MathPhoto20 or at the website https://mathphoto20.wordpress.com/ organized by Carl Oliver (@carloliwitter). This year’s photo challenge will start on Thursday, June 11th. Anyone can join in at any time.

This is the sixth year of the Math Photo Challenge. The first year was organized by Malke Rosenfeld (@mathinyourfeet) with assistance and contributions from the #MTBoS.

The Math Photo Challenge is about the intersection of mathematics, mathematics education, and the world we see around us. Photos of this intersection cause us to reflect on how the lens that we view the world through allows us to see it differently. To start week 1 of #MathPhoto20 this year will be challenging you to look at the world with an anti-racist lens and reflect on #BlackLivesMatter.  



Written by Erik Lee