geombarnett.com

Last night, my stamina ran out at 1 am, after watching the count in Pennsylvania move from a 3,000 vote margin to a 2,000 vote margin back to a 35,000 margin.  I slept fitfully, and when my husband came to bed without waking me (presumably to share good news), I knew even in my sleep, that Hillary, and the rest of us, lost the election.   I somehow got myself out of the house on time – 6:10 am – but  once on the bus, felt the tears welling up.  When I got to school, I made it to my office and broke down.  How would I get through the day?  I went to twitter for support and help.  

It helped to hear warm voices, even virtually.

I took my cue from the wonderful Heather Kohn.

I already had a Desmos activity planned (thank you Mary Bourassa!), so I began each of my classes by telling students that I wanted to open the floor for conversation, but if they didn’t want to talk, they had the option of working through a Quadratic Transformations activity.  Laying out a few ground rules (one mic, safe space), I opened the floor.  And they talked.  Sadly.  Intelligently.  Asked questions of me.  Before I started the discussion, I had to step out into the hallway, because although I wanted my students to understand how deeply upset I was, I felt that crying in front of them at the outset would not set the needed tone.  I want to create a space for them share and ask safely, but ultimately to realize that we are not completely disenfranchised (despite appearances to the contrary) – that we have the power to speak up, to use any privilege we have to fight racism, Islamophobia, and other forms of discrimination, to make sure all voices are heard.

These were some of the fears – heartbreaking – that were surfaced.

• From a Muslim girl: My mother told my brothers they had to shave.
• From a Muslim boy: Can he make us wear identity badges?
• Another male student: I’m Latino, and I can’t understand why 37% of Latinos voted for him. I’m angry at them.
• A student whose parents were born in Mexico: I’m okay but my parents are undocumented.  I’m worried about them.
• A boy from Trinidad: I’m going to be deported tomorrow.

I tried to allay fears where I could – I told the boy who feared id badges, that if he had to wear one, then we all could wear them in solidarity.  I wasn’t sure to say to the kids who are afraid of deportation, but I told them I was fairly certain that it wasn’t imminent.  I wanted to answer responsibly, but their pain and sadness was hard to see.

For the most part the conversations were thoughtful, heartfelt, and reasonable.  In one class, Planned Parenthood funding and reproductive rights came up and things quickly in another direction.  I explicitly steered the talk back to the election, not ready (or feeling sufficiently prepared) to engage with that topic.

There were students who were visibly shaken, had clearly been crying, and even when not participating, were taking in every word of what I hope was helpful in some sense.  I tried very hard to keep my own opinions moderately and infrequently voiced, which was not always easy.  One girl, even though unhappy with the outcome, said “Well, you know Hillary was a crook and should be in jail, so it’s not really a surprise that she lost.”  I pressed her for the nature of Hillary’s crimes, and was told “the Wall Street Journal says so, she stole a lot of money and she stole half the White House.”  I asked the student what that meant – to steal half the White House, but the girl couldn’t answer.   I told her I respected her right to her opinion, but she needed to make sure she had facts before accusing someone of a crime.

Kianna in my 5^th period said “We can’t just give up.  We need to stand up for what’s right.  We’re not done for, and we need to keep protesting and speaking up.  Just being negative won’t get us anywhere.”  I could’ve kissed her.  And I reminded the kids that 50% of the population didn’t vote for Trump.

In my last class, there were a few dicey moments – when two boys began baiting some of the students who expressed fears about being undocumented, or when another student told the boy sitting next to him “Go back to Mexico!”.  These last two were allegedly kidding around, but I wonder how much true feeling was in that jibe.  I hope not too much.

I’m almost ready to go home, still feeling like a truck hit me, physically and emotionally.  I just read the concession email that Hillary sent out, which put me back into the tears I began the day with.  But I’m proud of my students for discussing something so painful in such a respectful manner, and I’m proud that my classroom became a safe space for all of them.  And I’m going to try to keep what Kianna said in mind. Going to try.

from info.hillaryclinton.com

This was cross-posted in the Math for America Teacher Voices blog today (along with the headshot!).

Joining the online community of mathematics educators has had an indelible impact on my professional development. Through blogging, I explore and reflect on my teaching practice, as well as contribute resources to a vast network of similarly inclined teachers. By writing honestly, I expose myself not only to critique, but also to support. And by raising my voice in response to inequities and injustice in education, I am stepping out of my classroom and comfort zone to engage in debate. The greater the number of teachers who challenge themselves to blog, the more vibrant the online community becomes, thus elevating the profession; consider taking this creative step to develop yourself.

The first teacher blog I ever read was Math Teacher Mambo by Shireen Dadmehr. As an early career teacher in a high need school, I was continually searching for high quality materials to engage students for whom math was at best a tolerated chore, and at worst, a subject to be avoided. That Shireen had a widget on her blog, which linked to all of her worksheets, freely available for borrowing, was a game changer for me. I visited her site regularly, downloading her content for current and future use.

Shortly thereafter, I came across Dan Meyer’s blog, and realized that the world of math education blogging was huge. Reading through comments on any of Dan’s posts, and clicking on the links therein, led me down a fascinating rabbit hole of blogs containing resources, reflections, policy debates, and humor.

I created my first blog, Math on the Blogosphere, in 2009. A combination of classroom reflection and student outreach, I envisioned my students checking my updates and following intriguing instructions nightly. Not successful in engaging them, I posted irregularly for a year or two, and stopped writing.

My blog reading, however, continued, and in 2013, I began writing anew at Her Mathness. My goal was no longer garnering student readership, but rather participating in and giving back to the online community – sharing resources, and having a voice in continually evolving conversation about math education. A long time ago, I earned a couple of degrees in English, and the opportunity to exercise my writing muscles was welcome.

In 2013, I attended my first weeklong residential conference at Exeter and wrote a lengthy post about the classes, participants, and inspiring keynote speakers. One of these speakers was Dan Meyer, who noted my recaps in a post of his, and I was on the map (485 hits in one day!).  I also attended Twitter Math Camp that summer, and my commitment to blogging was permanently cemented. The community of math teachers who regularly share, reflect, and thoughtfully converse about their teaching experiences became real, welcoming, and inspiring.

I wrote more regularly, and ran a pictorial daily 180 blog for one year. I shared resources I developed, reflected publicly on my teaching – its weaknesses and strengths, wrote about injustices and frustrations, and shared personal posts. My blog became my online professional journal; the process of writing each post gave me the mental space to contemplate my classroom practice and my students’ concomitant participation. I now attend to the appearance as well as the writing of my blog, posting photographs, images and videos to enhance the content. And I always cite my sources and inspirations.

Diving into the math education corner of the internet is a rewarding and broadening experience which connects me with a diverse group of like-minded professionals, who prioritize student learning through open reflection – the MTBoS (Math Twitter Blogosphere) is my professional learning community.

Writing a blog is not without risk; the memory of the Internet is infinite, as is one’s exposure. This exposure forces me to be thoughtful, intentional, and as clear as possible when expressing opinions, or citing someone else’s. Last May, I wrote a post about the ‘Course Corrections’ event at Momath – a conversation between James Tanton and Andrew Hacker about who needs what type of math education. I was keenly aware that I was attributing words to the speakers based on a fallible recording (my handwritten notes). I issued disclaimers when I wasn’t entirely certain that quotes were accurate, and checked with others who had been at the event. My caution paid off, and the post was well received and heavily commented upon. In fact, four other Math for America teachers (James Cleveland, Amy Hogan, Patrick Honner, and Jose Vilson) have blogged about Andrew Hacker as well – each eloquently expressing their reaction to a perceived attack on math education.

Among the Math for America (MƒA) teacher community, there are almost thirty bloggers, seventeen of whom are actively blogging (with posts written in the past year). Their blogs, listed below, reflect the diversity of our schools, professional and personal experiences, and teaching areas. Each blog merits notice; in the interest of keeping your attention, I will try to summarize a few broad categories which describe them. (The blogs have been listed in alphabetical order by author in each category.)

Sharing Resources and Lesson Ideas

• MƒA Master Teacher Evanthia Basias has just started her blog, Fun with Geogebra, which promises to be filled with tips for using Geogebra, Desmos, and other dynamic resources in the math classroom.
• MƒA Master Teacher James Cleveland, in addition to writing reflectively about his classroom, conferences he’s attended, and LGBTQ issues in the classroom, shares instructions, resources and classroom action tips for using games to teach and practice math over at The Roots of the Equation.
• At A World of Science, you can find detailed project-based curriculum guides, and technology-based how-to videos; additionally, MƒA Master Teacher John Derian also shares auxiliary documents he has created.
• Steve Gallagher, an MƒA Master Teacher, has generously shared an entire course in Forensic Science over at Crime Scene, complete with lesson plans, photos, worksheets, and relevant links, available to anyone who stops by his website.
• If you teach AP Statistics (or Algebra 2, or any math, for that matter), A Little Stats is a must-follow blog; Amy Hogan, an MƒA Master Teacher, shares thoughtful activities, data and technology sources, and detailed statistically related recommendations. Not limiting her writing to Statistics resources, Amy’s reaction to Andrew Hacker covered three posts.
• Over at com, the mission is “to organize the world of Education, Science and Technology to improve lives!”  Towards that end, MƒA Master Teacher Parvez Jamal provides links to articles, videos, and tools; there is something for everyone at his website.
• At MƒA Master Teacher Michael Zitolo’s wikispaces website, SOF Physics!, you can find physics, programming, and Arduino resources (including his tutorials).

Reflections on Teaching

• MƒA Fellow Matt Baker, writing at Pythagoras Was a Nerd, questions his teaching and classroom persona publicly, sharing ideas and (bravely) soliciting feedback. He writes about his professional goals before the school year begins, reports on how well he did afterwards, and looks constructively forward, modeling truly reflective practice.
• It is clear that Kit Golan, an MƒA Master Teacher, uses his blog, Those Who Teach Do More, as a space in which to think through some of the issues we all face – covering depth versus breadth, how to best start the school year, accountable talk in classrooms – as well as to share his personal growth as teacher.
• Another blog that includes reflection – on classroom practice, relationships with students, graduate school, Pokémon Go and education – is Carl’s Teaching Blog, written by MƒA School Leader Fellow Carl Oliver.
• Lazy Ocho, MƒA Master Teacher Brian Palacios’s blog, contains in-depth reflections on teaching, professional development, and education policy. Lazy Ocho also has a comprehensive page of online math education resources, categorized by both course and classroom use – thanks for doing the legwork for us!
• If you want to see how a middle school science teacher ran an aquaponics project, from his Fund for Teachers research trip through a TED talk and visit to the White House, check out MƒA Master Teacher Michael Paoli’s Aquaponics from Europe to Kids in NYC Baby…
• Howard Stern, an MƒA Master Teacher, reflects on teaching, professional development, technology and school politics at mathmtcs. His recaps of George Hart’s Geometric Constructions workshops include both experiences at MƒA and school.

Policy/Discussion

• MƒA Master Teacher Brian Cohen’s blog, under the Making the Grade Blog tab at com, primarily addresses both local and national education policy issues.
• Math teacher, photographer and New York Times contributor, MƒA Master Teacher Patrick Honner shares his teaching reflections, mathematical photography, and policy opinions at Honner. His website is well organized, with links to a great collection of resources.
• John McCrann, an MƒA Master Teacher, has a spot on Education Week’s Teacher Blogs page. His blog, Prove It! addresses a wide range of topics including experiential education, opting out, race, and privilege and assessment.
• Author of This is Not a Test and founder of #educolor, MƒA Master Teacher Jose Vilson writes over at JLV. His posts are about race, class, and education; they are thought provoking, and full of relevant references. Jose also has guest writers presenting additional perspectives.

So, why blog? There are as many answers to that question as there are blogs – to make a statement, contribute to the educational community, to publicly journal your experiences. If you want to blog, jump in and give it a try – everyone started somewhere, often with an awkward introductory post! Remember, your blog is primarily for you, for your own professional (and perhaps personal) development. MƒA Master Teacher Brian Palacios (Lazy Ocho) says, “Write for yourself. Be selfish. Post privately if you have to. The act of writing about your teaching will transform your practice and improve it in ways you never thought of.”

Wendy Menard, blogging at Her Mathness, teaches math at Midwood High School at Brooklyn College, where she has been the math department technology coordinator and coach of the math club. She left a career in budgeting and finance to become a math teacher in 2006, inspired by the public school teachers she encountered through her children’s education.  Wendy became an MƒA Master Teacher in 2015, and will be co-facilitating the Racially Relevant Pedagogy PLT with Jose Vilson this fall. 

geobarnett.com

First of all, today is my daughter’s TWENTY FIFTH birthday.  Don’t blink, guys – that’s how fast it goes.  Happy Birthday, my very dearest Marilyn.  You are one of the two best things I have ever done.

Costuming all her life

Up at 5:34, which is actually OVERSLEEPING, but made my bus (the later one which still gets me to school on time).  There is a beautiful pink sunrise peeking through the buildings on Coney Island Avenue, which will only be visible at this hour for a few more weeks.   I’ve got bookroom duty during 1st period, which begins at 7:15, so I don’t have a lot of time for my 2nd period prep.  I learned early on, however, that leaving school the night before not ready for the next day meant for sure that the copier would be broken, or that you would be assigned a coverage, or that some other impediment to preparation would occur. So I am ready to continue with practicing linear systems in three variables with my Algebra 2 classes.  I just need to find a good Desmos activity for those [few] students for whom one day was enough; I’m thinking Function Carnival will appropriately engage and challenge.

I see many students I know on the bus, but most are plugged in and sort of sleepwalking.  I don’t disturb their last few minutes of rest; I get it.  Usually, I would be grabbing a few minutes of pleasure reading on the bus (I’m currently reading How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon), but I’m drafting this post!

I arrived at school at 6:55.  This may sound ridiculously early to some of you, but I love the school when it’s so quiet.  I remember that not only will I be distributing books, but that my students will be receiving them as well, so I go down to the math office to get some book receipts, only to discover that my school keys are not where they should be.  Mentally retracing my steps before I left school yesterday, I realize that I probably left them inside the office I am attempting to enter; I stopped by to make photocopies on my way out yesterday.  I find another early bird math teacher to let me in, and thankfully, the keys are exactly where I thought they would be.  Crisis averted.

When the first bell rings, I get ready to go to the book room.  I hope the 1st period teacher remembers to send his students…..

My book room duty is over at 7:27.  I make a quick stop at the Dean’s Office to drop off some work for a student on in-house suspension.  I’m saddened that this young man  will be out of my class for 4 days so early in the term; I hope that he attends in-house, and that the teacher there helps him complete his work so that he maintains some kind of feeling for the class.  This fall I will be participating in a Restorative Justice training workshop, and am feeling somewhat more sensitive to the deleterious effect of removing a student from class.  I hope this student returns, and attends regularly after this disruption.

30 minutes to showtime. I head down to my classroom with my trusty cart (a traveling office supply store) and start thinking about the date.  When I was a grad student with the NYC Teaching Fellows, one of my Math Methods professors, Erica Litke, always made a math problem out of the date.  I adopted this practice the day I began teaching, and have continued it every day (really, every single day) since.  I love it when I make a mistake and a student points it out in the middle of class; one year, there were two boys who weren’t in my class who would stop by every day and compete with each other to figure out the math problem.   I make a second trip between my office and the classroom with the iPad cart, and then run down to the mailroom to get my attendance folders.  It’s not even 8 am, and I’ve already walked more than a mile and climbed four flights of stairs three times.  But I’m ready to go.  Hopefully, the kiddies are too.

10:04 AM My teaching day is 40% complete already.  The two morning Algebra 2 classes were spent with students wrestling (struggling productively, I hope) with the three variable systems. The vast majority of the kids understand what they need to do, but little mistakes, such as flipped or dropped negatives, or not multiplying on both sides of an equation when eliminating a variable, abound. I brought the iPads for those students who were sure (yesterday, at least) that they didn’t need more practice, and I set up Function Carnival for those students to work on after they had tried this lovely system which arrived in my inbox yesterday, courtesy of a piece by James Tanton in the MAA Math Messenger.

  As it turned out, no one asked for an iPad.  Several students worked away at this system, although I did not see a correct solution (which means I can use it as extra credit on tomorrow’s quiz!).  I repeatedly stressed to the students to keep their work neat and to leave themselves lots of room in order to avoid the aforementioned common errors, but that is a lesson that is usually learned the hard way, through trial and much error.

I’ve got a triple coming up – two sections of Discrete Math sandwiching another Algebra 2 class.  We are working on Matrix Logic problems and I’m hoping the kids will enjoy working on them independently – I think I am talking way too much at the board.  We will start, however, with a number talk. Yesterday we moved from dot cards to addition (67 + 28) and I’m thinking today we’ll take the leap to multiplication.  The students seem to like these number talks, although I would like the conversation to be a bit livelier.  I am contemplating asking specific students what they think about someone else’s strategy, but I am concerned that this could either backfire or create resistance.  I am looking forward to the day that I am more comfortable with this!  But with most things in teaching, I find, you’ve got to go through the inevitable awkward learning period before you get to the flow.

On an exciting note, a pair of hawks has built a nest in the fire escape across the street from my classroom!  I haven’t gotten a good picture yet (the birds are well camouflaged by the brick building), but every time they appear, I get excited and call the students’ attention to it.  And when the birds take off, it’s breathtaking.  Got to turn this into some kind of math…hmmm.

It’s 1:45 P.M., and my official day is done – the upside to being up at a ridiculously early hour.  The Discrete Math classes went pretty well.  I am doing Number Talks every day as a warm-up; in the first class, I used 18 x 5, which was, I think, too simple for my students.  One student described decomposing the numbers, but the rest of the class steadfastly claimed that they mentally used the long multiplication algorithm.  In the second class, I reverted to dot cards, using this representation:which provoked a much richer discussion, and a greater diversity of response. One student came up to the board three times to share his perspectives.

We are working on our first unit, Matrix Logic (taken in part from the book Crossing the River with Dogs), and today we began tackling problems in which each statement is a falsehood.  The students take to these problems as the logic behind them becomes clear, and engagement, in both sections was high.   I distributed problem sets for them to work on at their tables (finally getting away from the board), gave some guidance regarding how to get started, and many of the kids dug right in.  Those that needed help asked for it, which is great – my Algebra 2 classes aren’t always so forthcoming when they don’t know what to do.  Problematically, however, many students stopped working after they finished the first logic question, and needed a lot of encouragement to continue.  The problems are quite wordy, and although absolutely capable of reading through the material, I think some of the kids assume they ‘can’t do word problems’.  I scribed while they described the set-up of each problem to me, listened to their reasoning about what each clue allowed them to assume, and pushed them along their way without really giving specific input.  My expectation (read: hope) is that tomorrow each student will complete the first problem set in their notebook; I will begin each class by showing them an example of a former student’s notebook to provide a model.

Today was the big ‘equalization’ day – the day by which all classes must have 34 (or fewer) students on their roster per the UFT contract with New York City.  I knew there would be some shifting in my Algebra 2 classes since they were all oversized.  But I also received several new students in Discrete Math, students who had been removed from Algebra 2 and programmed for my elective instead.  The disappointment that they feel by this re-assignment is 99 times out of 100 unmistakable, and I empathize with them – they are being bumped off the higher math track, and for no other reason than scheduling exigency, and perhaps a lower grade in a previous math course.  I tell these children that they are welcome in my classroom, and will definitely learn math, but, if they truly want to take Algebra 2 instead, they need to make some noise, and have their parents make it as well.

My Algebra 2 class was more of what I did this morning – systems with three variables.  I found myself getting caught in a trap of checking work on the spot – a student would claim they did everything correctly and were still getting the wrong answer (so there must be two solutions to the system! they said).  After reviewing some work to find the aforementioned careless errors, I realized I wasn’t supporting cooperative work at the tables, and began referring all errors back to the students.  Looking for arithmetic mistakes prevented me from helping children with bigger conceptual problems.  I’m glad I caught myself doing this so early in the year.  Hopefully this extra day of practice will boost their performance on tomorrow’s quiz.

Speaking of which, my monitor came up for her 8th period shift only to tell me that my quizzes had not yet been copied, and therein lies tomorrow’s disaster that requires averting.  I didn’t have any work for her, so I helped her revise some PreCalculus homework.  Yesterday, we had worked on problems involving the changing of logarithm bases, and her teacher (one of my office mates, actually) told her she couldn’t use the method I taught her, which is described and proven here by Dr. Math at the Math Forum.  I’m not sure whether I want to engage with this other teacher about the validity of this method, but I am saddened by this instance of a teacher insisting on one correct way to do a problem, especially at this level –  and unhappy that my lovely monitor is caught in the middle; she clearly understands why the method we used works, and in my view, should be able to use it.

Other than my quizzes not being ready for tomorrow, I have nothing to prep right now, so I can head home!  I have two tutoring students later today – one, a girl I have been working with for 3 years (she’s now in 8th grade) on enrichment, and the other, the daughter of a dear friend who needs a little geometric guidance.  Both of these girls are terrific kids with good senses of humor and an appreciation of math, so it won’t even feel like work.  And hopefully tonight, I can get to bed on time to make that 6:10 AM bus.

geobarnett.com

Reflection:

1) Teachers make a lot of decisions throughout the day.  Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming.  When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of?  What is one you are worried wasn’t ideal?

I am proud of how I engaged the Discrete Math students in the Matrix Logic puzzles.  This is foreign content, and many of them are suspicious (but not hostile) of the course.  But I guided them towards finding their own solutions, and heard a lot of positive comments.  Not so ideal: I mentioned that I caught myself combing student work for errors, not realizing that I should have redirected that effort.  I hope I can correct this in the coming weeks.

2) Every person’s life is full of highs and lows.  Share with us some of what that is like for a teacher.  What are you looking forward to?  What has been a challenge for you lately?

I am looking forward to the results of the first quiz in Algebra 2; I still don’t have a sense of who my students are, and I will gain some perspective on (a) how well I’m doing at teaching them, and (b) what their strengths and weaknesses are.  I’m also looking forward to hearing some friendly debate as the Discrete Math classes work more independently on the logic puzzles.

One challenge for me is work/life balance.  I desperately want to stay well-rested this year, and even maintain some attendance at the gym.  I’m working on it, always.

3) We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is.  As teachers we work to build relationships with our coworkers and students.  Describe a relational moment you had with someone recently.

I’m enjoying working with my monitor, Rachel, this year.  She was my monitor all of last year, and had just transferred into the school.  She’s more mature this year, and better adjusted, and we talk more honestly and productively about her workload and priorities in school.  When we discuss the logarithm/PreCalculus situation, we went over the proof of the method we had used, and she took the proof – I hope – to show to her teacher.

4) Teachers are always working on improving, and often have specific goals for things to work on throughout a year.  

I continue to keep getting to know my Discrete Math students as a priority, and to keep reiterating to them – in words and in deed – that they can do math, that their voices are important in my classroom, and that there is something valuable that we can learn together.

I am struggling with keeping up the Contemplate then Calculate routine (but it’s still on my radar, and I will try again), but I have kept up the number talks every day for the last week.  I’m proud of that.

5) What else happened this month that you would like to share?

I’ve signed up for a Google Apps for Education training to earn Level 1 Certification – I am SUPER excited about that!