More Than Words
Last week I shared a heartbreaking post by Tracy Zager on the grade level Google+ communities. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, I encourage you to check it out.
The gist of the post is that we should be mindful about the messages we send students and parents about learning and doing mathematics, especially at the beginning of the school year. Sometimes damaging messages come across in the form of words — “You may not talk to anyone as you work.” — but they also come across in our choice of lessons and activities we do in our classrooms — such as a long pre-assessment that most students will “fail” because they unsurprisingly don’t yet know the content from their new grade level.
But there’s hope! This Tweet sums it up nicely:
I’ve been especially encouraged about how well elementary teachers in Round Rock ISD do start math class at the beginning of the year. The latest blog posts from the members of our Math Rocks cohort are proof of that! Back in July the cohort kicked off with a focus on building relationships and fostering curiosity around mathematics. One of the first things we did was watch Tracy’s Shadow Con talk. Afterward everyone took Tracy’s call to action to choose a word to guide their math planning at the start of the year.
Flash forward a month and the school year is finally getting underway. Our latest Math Rocks mission was to re-watch Tracy’s talk and to watch my own Shadow Con talk, since the two are very much related. Then each person had to choose one of our calls to action to follow and write a blog post reflecting on their experiences as they kicked off the school year.
The results have been so inspiring! I’ve collected all of their posts in this document. Take a look. Just reading the titles of their posts makes me happy, and if you go on to read them, I hope you’ll finish with as big of a smile on your face as I have.
