philosophy – Page 3

On the intersection of being White and being a math teacher

Two of the books that I read this summer, Why are the All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum and Blindspot by Mahzarin R. Banaj and Anthony G. Greenwald, utterly blew my mind.

So while the summer winds down, I’ll leave it at the end of this month with so many concerns about my teaching and how I address racism.

A. For my entire life, just like a lot of other White people in this country, I considered myself colorblind. I claimed that I was blind to the race of the people I interacted with. And I took a lot of pride in this fact, too. If I didn’t see people’s race, I couldn’t discriminate or play favorites. I conned myself into this line of thinking. Being born and raised in the inner city, and one of the few White people in my neighborhood and school, race wasn’t a “thing” for me. This perspective continued into adulthood and pervaded my teaching. Even with students, I either claimed the colorblind stance or simply avoided conversations about race. It isn’t until now that I realize that this is, and was a huge, huge problem.

B. Most White people don’t think we live in a racist society. Most White teachers don’t either. But we do. I’m not talking about outspoken racism, like that of white nationalists. I’m referencing the systematic racism that pervades in the air we breathe here in America. In many ways, we choose to not think about it because it’s uncomfortable. White privilege is a very real thing, even if we chose to look the other way. It existent in every aspect of society. Most White people don’t see it this way because we are (myself included) inside the box — we are part of the dominant group. That inherently makes it harder to understand the advantages we have.

C. What’s especially damaging about this is that every single White teacher I know is a good person. They don’t intentionally aim to do harm to students of color. Heck, most of these teachers teach in schools with large proportions of students of color because they want to help interrupt the cycle of inequality and injustice that these kids experience. But our hidden biases, which strongly favor our culture of Whiteness, can still significantly affect our judgment in ways that we aren’t even aware of.

D. What does this mean? It means that if we teachers (and especially our school leaders) don’t develop an anti-racist stance that fosters a critical consciousness about life being more than White privilege, our schools and classrooms will be a mere reflection of the racist society in which we live. It means that if we don’t mindfully recognize the systemic racism that our students of color, and colleagues for that matter, encounter every day, how can we attempt to take a chance at interrupting it?

E. So how do we, as teachers, bring up such a sensitive topic with colleagues and administrators to help push the needle in the right direction? There’s fear, dread, and detachment in people’s eyes (not just White people, either) whenever race is brought up. I know because it used to happen to me. I have no idea how to address this, but I think open, safe conversations with one another are vitally important — like at staff and department meetings. Provocative, reflective prompts are needed (Jose and Wendy!). A simple discussion can go a long way. Norms need to be set. I would hope that administrators can be present and active. Anxiety is natural, but I like to think that if we’re sincere and honor one another, the right words will always find their way out of our mouths.

F. Self-discovery might also help. Here are various research-based tests that we can take online to help determine each of our hidden biases. They are called Implicit Association Tests. Here’s some background on them.

G. I don’t know, I don’t know. I’m at a loss here. I’m no expert on how to make this happen. Progress seems so far away, but this post is a start for me, I suppose. A grueling and uncomfortable path lay ahead.

H. One more thing that I want to add. Right now, 75% of my mathematics department at my school is White male. That bothers me. At times, I worry about the subliminal messages that this sends the 90% of students at my school who are Black or Latino — especially if we (White males) aren’t actively taking an anti-racist approach to teaching and learning mathematics.

Why we’re better together (crosspost)

*This post was originally published on the Teacher Voices blog at mathforamerica.org. It was co-authored by myself and the awesome Courtney Ginsberg.

Teaching is the most complex job in the world. We shape the future. We motivate students, deal with ever-changing expectations, and tackle mounds of paperwork. Through it all, we operate within a system that champions test scores over learning. This is a mere subset of the demands placed on us every day. If you’re a teacher reading this, you can no doubt think of many more.

Given this backdrop, no one would blame a teacher for focusing solely on their own classroom and their own students. Thoughtful teachers understand the urgency to serve the 30 smiling faces that walk into our classrooms each day. With that said, there is danger in not acknowledging the role we play in the larger context of teaching. When we fail to see our colleagues, both in our own school and out, as necessary partners in the work that we do with students, we become an island. Isolated, we create everything ourselves, work through problems alone, and have difficulty seeing beyond our classrooms. In this way, our potential, and our students’ success, is inherently limited.

As teachers of mathematics, the hallmark of improvement is the meaningful connections we make with other STEM teachers. These connections drive collaboration and inspire us to rethink what’s possible for our students, our classrooms, and our schools. Naturally, this is the setting where teachers become teacher leaders. We are empowered and unafraid to volunteer our time to lead professional learning courses or simply start a discussion on an interesting topic, like we do at MƒA. Occurring with little to no help from outsiders, these are the most meaningful types of professional development experiences.

This line of thinking contrasts the message that is often promoted from the top-down, which is for us to lean on “experts” to help us become better teachers. We are reminded to seek out these specialists and incorporate their models to better serve our students. This is a linear, straightforward approach to the challenge of teaching development. Go to the expert, learn from the expert, case closed.

While this sounds great and makes a lot of money for those in high places, knowledgeable teachers understand the reality: no matter how much success or experience you’ve had in (or out) of the classroom, no one is an expert at teaching. Many will claim otherwise, but becoming a better teacher isn’t linear – it’s more piecewise than anything. Different strategies are effective in different contexts with different kids. This is why teacher leadership doesn’t hang its hat on expertise. Instead, it relies on the collective knowledge and experiences of all teachers to push the community forward.

This type of collaboration amongst teachers happens every day. For example, several years ago, while co-facilitating an MƒA PLT with MƒA Master Teacher Mike Zitolo, Brian learned of their shared passion for classroom inter-visitations. Excited to learn from one another, they made unsupervised, grassroots plans to visit each other’s schools. The result was something that deeply impacted Brian. Mike’s methodical, know-why-this-is-important approach to physics was very different from the mathematics classrooms that Brian visited in the past (as well as his own). By immersing himself in Mike’s classroom, he not only gained a deeper appreciation for the STEM work that happens outside of mathematics, but learned how science can enhance how he teaches mathematics. The experience influenced Brian to publish a lesson that integrates a microcontroller into regression analysis.

A few years ago Courtney took former MƒA Master Teacher Phil Dituri’s workshop, “Making Group Work the Norm.” It sparked a real desire to collaborate more with her colleagues, so she spent time working through ways to incorporate them into her larger school community. She ended up designing PD for her STEM team to implement similar strategies. Shortly thereafter, Courtney heard MƒA Master Teacher Shannon Guglielmo speak at the annual MƒA MT²: Master Teachers on Teaching event. Courtney and Shannon attended graduate school together so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to reconnect. They talked and shared resources on her subway map theory, which led to collaboration around using statistics to solve community issues. This also allowed for deeper collaboration within their building as Courtney is working to set up inter-visitations for the 10+ MƒA teachers working at different schools within her larger building.

In both instances, teacher leadership wasn’t defined by the level of expertise of the people involved. It was developed through a genuine interest in learning from other teachers and a willingness to openly share knowledge amongst each other. This is the beauty and power of communities like MƒA. They are filled with teachers inspiring other teachers to be lifelong learners of STEM, who invariably work towards delivering the most meaningful and authentic instruction possible. In short, we lead each other.

To expand on the interdisciplinary STEM work that already has so many MƒA teachers engaged, many of us will come together next month for three days of growth. We will lead one another through a series of workshops that share our resources and best practices, all with the aim of leveraging big ideas in and out of the classroom. This teacher-designed, teacher-led conference, the Summer Think, will be the first of its kind at MƒA and will provide teachers a relaxing atmosphere to think in ways that is so hard to do during the school year. From exploring the social, economic, and ethical issues of climate change to infusing the design process into our classrooms, the conference will use mathematics and science as entry points to high levels of collaboration. With in-depth, multi-day workshops and a variety of support sessions all happening smack in the middle of the summer, this unique experience will embody teacher leadership.

Despite the resounding needs of our own students, our influence can and should extend beyond our classroom. Experiences like ours as well as those that will happen at the MƒA Summer Think demonstrate one simple fact: we’re better together.

On my journey and the mathematicians beyond white dudes initiative

At the end of last school year, I did a lot of soul-searching. In the midst of finalizing where I was going to teach beginning this year, I found myself reevaluating many of the core values that I held as a teacher. A huge dilemma for me was reflecting how I address identity and representation in my classroom. Race and ethnicity were of specific interest. Thanks to Claude M. Steele, so was stereotype threat. I thought about al this frequently, but it wasn’t something that I gave focused attention to over the previous ten years of my career.

I thought about all of this regularly over the previous ten years of my career, but I never gave it focused attention.

Inspired, over the last several months I’ve begun to evolve. I decided that I wanted my teaching to better serve the underserved population of students that I encounter every day. Located in the poorest congressional district in America, 90 percent of the students at my school are of color. My previous school was of a similar demographic. It was time to deliberately integrate these statistics into my practice.

Over this time, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve realized that as a white male, I have inherit privileges in our society. Privileges that almost all of my students know nothing about. Although my ignorance prevented me from openly accepting this earlier in my teaching career, I now see that I must do my best to understand my whitenes in order to best serve my students and school community. It’s not enough to simply ignore race and try to teach above it, like I’ve done in the past. I cannot assume that my lessons and the mathematics I teach need not address the racism that my students face every day.

I’ve read works by Jose Vilson, Monique Morris, Claude Steele, Robert Moses, and Stuart Buck. After sparking conversations colleagues, I’ve absorbed a great deal from those who are addressing race and equity far better than I. I’ve attended workshops where I’ve publicly confronted my own biases. I’ve made myself vulnerable by opening dialogue with my students about their take on things. I’m learning directly from them.

This brings me to the Mathematicians Beyond White Dudes initiative that I started this year with my students.

C7tREjRX0AAH7mV

I got the idea from Annie Perkins. Back at TMC16, I attended her workshop where she shared her approach of profiling outstanding mathematicians that weren’t male and weren’t white. I was immediately hooked. I knew that I had to bring this to my kids. Read more about Annie’s outstanding work.

I’m not going to go into the worthiness of this project, because Annie has done that so eloquently already. Instead, I’ll just share how I’ve implemented it.

So far this year I’ve featured a different mathematician for each unit. (Next year I hope to do it more often.) I pull from the list of mathematicians from Annie’s post and piece together a one paragraph biography that highlights each mathematician’s life, achievements, and contributions to the mathematics community. I formally present each mathematician at the start of each unit. The conversation doesn’t usually last longer than 5 minutes. I print and copy the bio of the mathematician on the cover of the unit packet that students receive. I also post the bio of each mathematician in the classroom. Link to the doc containing the posters.

My students have really enjoyed it. They look forward to the big reveal of the next mathematician. Rounds of applause for the mathematicians are not unusual. Other teachers have even seen the posters in my classroom and commented about how they like the idea.

Now I’m not going to sit here and say that all of a sudden I’m doing an excellent job at addressing representation in my classroom, because I’m not. Gosh no. I’m still struggling and haven’t done anything to address the curriculum I teach. I’m just trying harder to be more aware of my own ignorance on the matter and teaching towards it. This is just one small way that I feel I’m accomplishing that. There’s still a long, long way to go.

Becoming an anti-racist teacher is my goal, I think. My students enter my classroom each day with the hopes of becoming better students of mathematics, better people. This is their parents’ hope too. I owe it to them to ensure that my instruction addresses and embraces who they are, really. We all do.