Thanks for sharing, Dan! I agree that schools and math classes aren’t always constructed for the success of every single identity. I find that it is the responsibility of educators to ensure that students feel valued on their own, with peers, and in the classroom. It is definitely worth the time to collaborate with those that are well versed in the intersection of race, identity, and math. I must keep in mind that teachers are always teaching more than just the content at hand.

Furthermore, could you elaborate on how your team at Desmos is teaching students about themselves? This sounds fascinating and I would love to hear more about the specifics.

Thanks for the question, Rishabh. Disclaimers: (1) I need to write more about this. (2) We are early in our work.

Most math education technology communicates to students that “smart ideas are had by other people — people who are most often older and whiter than you are — and your job is to re-iterate those smart ideas exactly.”

Re-iterate their same method. Re-iterate their same words defined in the same way. Etc.

So we create activities that draw out of students their own interesting early ideas and we offer everyone in the class tools to learn from those ideas. Students can write down paragraph responses, draw sketches, create shapes, not just complete multiple choice items. Teachers can snapshot those responses and communicate to students how interesting they are, without premature judgment of correctness. That’s the direction we’re moving.

You mentioned that a big difference between teaching high school math and elementary school math was that the latter were incredibly enthusiastic. I teach high school math, but the few hours I’ve spent volunteering to teach younger students have been similar. They are inexplicably excitable and engaged in a classroom. I was wondering, however, when and why students tend to lose this energy?

I remember being in elementary school and seeing amazingly gifted students reading at 12th-grade reading levels struggle to graduate high school when they are older. I think this occurs because, as you said, we do so much more than teach math. Teachers cultivate students’ identities throughout their lives by their actions in a classroom. For example, a teacher may shun a gifted student from speaking in a classroom because she’s not adhering to norms, thereby limiting her potential.

Furthermore, could you elaborate on how your team at Desmos is teaching students about themselves? This sounds fascinating and I would love to hear more about the specifics.

Best,

Rishabh Sharma

Intriguing. My aim is generally the opposite.

There’s many things about teaching that are the same whether the students are big or small, find maths easy or difficult, what their background is etc. What is very hard to do is take apart the differences — just how much assistance is best, whether to use more carrot or stick, whether to work in groups/pairs/individually etc.

I do tend to ascribe to the view that we are all much more alike than we are different, so that teaching does have lots of similarities regardless of the class, and that’s how we can manage to teach effectively with the ridiculously rudimentary preparation that teacher training gives. But the difference between good and great is spotting the differences surely?

Complex and powerful — that’s it! Teachers are actors in so many cultural scenes. Tremendous power. Work that’ll never be finished, never get boring. Thanks for your feedback, Sara.