Rote Learning vs. Radical Math Taiese Carson, Jessica Harrington, Christopher Kenny and Ariel Kramer | Capital City Charter School - Washington, DC
Every adult knows that middle school is hard. Asking students to embrace math in the way most math teachers historically do makes it even harder. Our math team is piloting a “Mathletes” curriculum to encourage high-performing students’ learning, but we want to tap into strategies for reaching struggling students, as well. To learn how educators from around the world are succeeding in their classrooms, we designed our fellowship to attend the International Congress of Mathematical Education (ICME) in Hamburg, Germany.
Attending ICME was vital for us because we learned research-proven strategies to improve our practice. The session on reaching all levels of students emphasized the importance of assigning a deep challenge during class and allowing students to appropriately struggle while solving the problem. We also observed the social impact of students sharing their work and building upon their knowledge base, including the errors. Presentations on teaching students with disabilities provided us with ideas for teaching students with a variety of needs, not just academic. Our favorite session dealt with kinesthetic learning by graphing equations with students’ body movements.
A surprising outcome was the idea of using math to create social justice. Several presenters discussed the historical, political and cultural dimensions of math and its relationship to society. One could easily view math as an isolated topic; however, it is very much embedded in the Presidential election, data teachers use to close the achievement gap and how our students view the world. One speaker closed out her speech by asking the audience how we can “teach mathematics so that people stop killing each other.” She asked participants to find ways to see the work of teaching math as a collective agenda that fosters relationships, builds students’ math identities and encourages the loving and doing of math across content areas.
Traditional professional development experiences focus on localized issues. At this conference, we observed cross-continent comparisons of math practices that promote student achievement. Through a variety of lectures from researchers and interaction with more than 3,000 educators from all around the world, we bonded as a team and established goals for our department and our students. South African mathematician Caroline Long wonderfully states, “Students in grades 6-8 are forced to make radical changes in their math learning and those who don’t make them are dependent on rote learning for the remainder of their math education.” We can either allow students to depend on memorization or we can help them see the love, creativity and inspiration math has to offer. Our team is ready to be the catalyst that sparks that change. We are ready to make the difference in students’ lives.
