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During the 2021-22 school year, I’m having weekly co-generative dialogues (or cogens) with my students. In an effort to help me process these talks and document progress, I summarize and write reflections after each cogen. This is the 22nd post in the series.

Two Additions
Two new members (one from period 1 and one from period 3) join today and complete cohort 4. The group feels complete. I give my opening spiel to the new members, get them caught up on what we discussed last week, and then jump right in.

Reflections on the farmers
This week I ran an activity celebrating farmers of color and exploring the injustices they’ve faced for generations in our country. The activity hinged on compound interest, average rate of change, and exponential regression. I have had a series of separate cogens (here and here) dedicated to its analysis and development, but I want to make space for my regular cogen to reflect on it. I open the floor.

Overall, the students liked the activity a lot. They appreciated the effort I put into its design and the role-playing aspect that it had. It afforded them an opportunity to study a “real world” application and issue. They also liked working in groups and how the group work was structured. The “we liked working in groups” comment caught me off-guard because I don’t think I did anything special with its structure, but I’ll happily take the positive feedback.

Interestingly, two weeks ago, when I was still planning the activity, I showed it to one of the cogen students and she flat out told me that it sounded boring. Today, during our talk, she admitted that she had fun doing it. After she says this, I get all excited and immediately pivot away from her to ask the group about being urban youth studying the farming industry. Looking back, this was a missed opportunity to ask her why her feelings about the activity changed. (I didn’t realize this misstep until after post-cogen when I listened to the recording of our talk. Even worse: I think she was in the midst of explaining why when I cut her off.)

I rush to ask the group about it because, living in New York City, farming isn’t exactly the most relevant issue for my students. In fact, this dichotomy gave me pause while planning it and made me second guess if I even wanted to do it. If I wanted to study social justice, couldn’t I find a more meaningful issue?

We discuss this. One student confirms my suspicions and says that she would have preferred to study a subject more relevant to her life, perhaps something job-related. But three other students offer alternative perspectives, saying they thought the topic was interesting. One says that because she knows nothing about farming and the systemic discrimination that farmers of color have faced, the activity helped expose her to a world she would have otherwise not known about. Another student comments that he actually has ancestors who were farmers and that he was able to draw parallels between his family and those I featured in the activity.

Next, the students give me some feedback on the mathematics of the activity. They explain how the math got more challenging the deeper we got into the activity, but they were OK with the gradual increase in difficulty, especially since I was walking around helping them and they had their groups to rely on. They point out that some of the farm-related vocabulary in the problems (e.g. yield, acreage) made it hard to get to the math.

They offer up several suggestions to improve the activity for next year. First, I should open each day with a brief mini-lesson overviewing some aspects of what students will encounter that day. Ideally, the mini-lesson would include me showing them an example (or, even better, a worked example) using farming terminology. I made one attempt at this over the course of the four days, but my timing of it was off by two days. I definitely see opportunities for more modeling next year. They also offer a sensible recommendation that I condense the average rate of change part of the activity, which got redundant. Since the activity had four sections, one student wonders whether each day could correspond to a different section (I took an asynchronous approach this week). This could help everyone be on the same page and subsequently help with understanding the math. To help students who don’t complete a particular day’s section, I could post a short video that students must watch before coming to class the next day.

The dialogue is flowing and before I know it, it’s 3:10pm. My last question concerns tomorrow. Do they want to watch a documentary on Black farmers and their struggle with the USDA or be given more time to complete the last section of the activity (instead of doing it on their own)? They unanimously vote for more time. That was an easy decision.

Their feedback carries me over the time I wanted to allot to reflecting on the activity, but I’m incredibly grateful for their suggestions.

Our lesson
With the five minutes we have left, I want to update the kids on our lesson. Last week I promised to identify a topic so we can begin brainstorming ideas for how the lesson would look. We don’t have time to brainstorm today, but I inform them of the topic: converting radicals to fractional exponents (and vice versa). We’re about 4-5 weeks out from learning it, so this will provide ample time for (a) me to teach it to the cogen students and (b) us to plan the lesson together. Coincidently, I have a short video clip of me overviewing the topic from remote learning. I ask the students to watch it before next week.

We’re off.

bp

By Friday, I was still reaching for it. Before first period began or right after eating my lunch, I had an urge to make sure I had it on. After two years, the act became instinctual, but after a week I figured I might be able to shake the impulse. I was wrong.

I’m talking about my facemask, of course. After New York City Public Schools made masks optional this week, the mental and emotional fatigue that came with wearing mine drove me to unmask Monday morning and not look back. (I never actually reached into the basket on my desk to retrieve it this week, but I came close several times.) I willingly and conscientiously followed every Covid guideline during the last two years. But now, well, I’m just over it. Teaching with muffled words, tasting cloth every time I sucked in air, and pinching my mask over the bridge of my nose every 5 minutes isn’t appealing to me anymore. I felt “face naked,” as I told my students this week, but it was liberating. Not only could I breathe deeper and clearer, but I could do so with a relaxed mind. Plus, after being smashed to face and throat for so long, my beard reveled in its newfound independence.

It didn’t come as a total shock that I was in the minority. Most students and staff at my school retained their masks. The number of fully unmasked (and partially unmasked) individuals narrowly increased as the week went on, but the number remained fairly constant as of yesterday.

When I got word last week that the mandate was going to be lifted, I began thinking a lot about how my students would react. In addition to masking for personal safety and for the safety of their families, one aspect of unmasking that I don’t think is talked about enough now that mandates are dropping is the social consequences it holds for students. In other words, I suspect that many of my students continued to mask this week for purely social reasons.

For teenagers, their image is everything. And between cameraless Zoom sessions and wearing a mask, many of them haven’t been fully seen in an academic context for two years. A pimple or a bad hair day is enough to keep them home from school, so I knew many of them weren’t going to ditch their masks the instant they had the option to do so. And I don’t blame them at all. There’s simply too much on the line. Their mask offers them protection. It’s a social safeguard that shields them from pointing fingers and gossip. It maintains their self-confidence and social capital. Over time, as more kids slowly reveal their noses and then chins, it will become less necessary for them to attend to this social dimension of unmasking, but that’ll take some time.

For those who unmasked with me week, it was heavenly to be able to see them and interact with no barriers between us. It was strange and even laughable seeing each other’s faces, but I sorely missed this foundational element of teaching. As I savored occupying unsanctioned space with them in the classroom, hallways, and cafeteria, I thought back to the spring of 2020. It was then that remote learning introduced an unnatural and immeasurable distance between us. It took two years, a lot of stress, and many intermediate measures for that distance to be closed. The journey back started a year ago with optional in-person learning that included masks, real social distancing, and plexiglass. Then there was fall 2021 with full in-person learning with pretend social distancing and masks. In December, when the Omicron bomb went off, remote learning scared the hell out of me by dragging us back to its dark lair for a week. Fortunately, when we returned in January, at-home testing ramped up, and attendance improved. Lifting the mask mandate was the last straw.

Others have the right to feel differently this week, but I was rejoicing. Seeing (some of) my students in their entirety again — and also being seen by them — was vitally important to me and my teaching. So while I still may have the occasional urge to reach for my mask, I’m feeling relieved and restored. Thus, the deep breaths I took in my classroom these last five days did more than fill my lungs with unfiltered air, they filled my heart and my pedagogy with unfiltered hope. We’re getting closer.

bp

By Friday, I was still reaching for it. Before first period began or right after eating my lunch, I had an urge to make sure I had it on. After two years, the act became instinctual, but after a week I figured I might be able to shake the impulse. I was wrong.

I’m talking about my facemask, of course. After New York City Public Schools made masks optional this week, the mental and emotional fatigue that came with wearing mine drove me to unmask Monday morning and not look back. (I never actually reached into the basket on my desk to retrieve it this week, but I came close several times.) I willingly and conscientiously followed every Covid guideline during the last two years. But now, well, I’m just over it. Teaching with muffled words, tasting cloth every time I sucked in air, and pinching my mask over the bridge of my nose every 5 minutes isn’t appealing to me anymore. I felt “face naked,” as I told my students this week, but it was liberating. Not only could I breathe deeper and clearer, but I could do so with a relaxed mind. Plus, after being smashed to face and throat for so long, my beard reveled in its newfound independence.

It didn’t come as a total shock that I was in the minority. Most students and staff at my school retained their masks. The number of fully unmasked (and partially unmasked) individuals narrowly increased as the week went on, but the number remained fairly constant as of yesterday.

When I got word last week that the mandate was going to be lifted, I began thinking a lot about how my students would react. In addition to masking for personal safety and for the safety of their families, one aspect of unmasking that I don’t think is talked about enough now that mandates are dropping is the social consequences it holds for students. In other words, I suspect that many of my students continued to mask this week for purely social reasons.

For teenagers, their image is everything. And between cameraless Zoom sessions and wearing a mask, many of them haven’t been fully seen in an academic context for two years. A pimple or a bad hair day is enough to keep them home from school, so I knew many of them weren’t going to ditch their masks the instant they had the option to do so. And I don’t blame them at all. There’s simply too much on the line. Their mask offers them protection. It’s a social safeguard that shields them from pointing fingers and gossip. It maintains their self-confidence and social capital. Over time, as more kids slowly reveal their noses and then chins, it will become less necessary for them to attend to this social dimension of unmasking, but that’ll take some time.

For those who unmasked with me week, it was heavenly to be able to see them and interact with no barriers between us. It was strange and even laughable seeing each other’s faces, but I sorely missed this foundational element of teaching. As I savored occupying unsanctioned space with them in the classroom, hallways, and cafeteria, I thought back to the spring of 2020. It was then that remote learning introduced an unnatural and immeasurable distance between us. It took two years, a lot of stress, and many intermediate measures for that distance to be closed. The journey back started a year ago with optional in-person learning that included masks, real social distancing, and plexiglass. Then there was fall 2021 with full in-person learning with pretend social distancing and masks. In December, when the Omicron bomb went off, remote learning scared the hell out of me by dragging us back to its dark lair for a week. Fortunately, when we returned in January, at-home testing ramped up, and attendance improved. Lifting the mask mandate was the last straw.

Others have the right to feel differently this week, but I was rejoicing. Seeing (some of) my students in their entirety again — and also being seen by them — was vitally important to me and my teaching. So while I still may have the occasional urge to reach for my mask, I’m feeling relieved and restored. Thus, the deep breaths I took in my classroom these last five days did more than fill my lungs with unfiltered air, they filled my heart and my pedagogy with unfiltered hope. We’re getting closer.

bp

This is the first post of a four-part series where I explore planning and implementing a social justice-themed activity in Algebra 2. In addition to traditional collaboration with colleagues, my use of three cogenerative dialogues to develop and reflect on the activity were critical to its design and execution.

Part 1: Preplanning

For years, I’ve been in search of meaningful ways to bring social justice into my Algebra 2 class. I haven’t had much success, but there is hope. It comes in the form of the math department at my school as well as my students — namely my cogenerative dialogue.

Last year, the Geometry teacher at my school designed a project based on the 1619 Project podcast. It was a highly creative endeavor that focused on the historic discrimination in the farming industry. He used excerpts from the last two episodes which profile a Black family, the Provosts, and their experiences with their farm.

For his project, he presented students with fictional data of many plots of land. The data included info on plot sizes, bank loan information, and the demographics of the loan recipients. The goal was for the students to determine if discrimination was involved in handing out the bank loans. It was part of his triangle congruency unit (all plots of land were triangular). If two plots were equal in size and location, for example, are the two people of equal qualifications applying for loans given the same amount? Are there patterns of discrimination? Could students prove it in court?

He first ran the project last year during remote learning. He did it again this year. Intrigued by his creativity and willingness to embrace the intersection of social justice and mathematics, I’ve decided to build on what he started. More specifically, I see a throughline between his project’s focus on farm loans and how compound interest is explored in Algebra 2. Could I continue what he started — but instead of exploring plot sizes, could I anchor my activity on interest rates? Or extend it to discuss something like predatory lending and its impact on urban communities?

I brought this idea to the rest of the math department. We brainstormed. Our wealth of experience fueled my idea with momentum. In our talks, however, I wondered: what do my students think? If there’s anything that I’ve learned these last few years, it’s to make space to listen to students. Talking my head off with fellow teachers absent student voice is not something I want to do anymore. I pump the brakes on my planning to seek out some student perspectives. I want to hear what they think.

To do this, I begin planning for a series of three cogenerative dialogues (or cogens). The first cogen will be used to gather baseline info from students that will shape my planning. I’ll use the second cogen to present students with the activity itself, make space to receive their feedback, and then modify the activity based on what they say. The third and final cogen will occur after the activity’s conclusion and will be used to hear from the students how it went.

I identify students for the cogens by asking my Geometry colleague for recommendations. Who was active last year and can supply me insights into his project? He drops five students’ names. I also pinpoint four other students who are currently in Geometry and just experienced his project this year (they’re doubling up on Geo and Alg 2). I check all of their schedules and determine that lunch is a viable meeting time. I find them a few days later and explain that I want their feedback on an upcoming class activity. They agree to meet during lunch this past week.

Because of scheduling, I’m unable to meet with all of the students in a single session, so I hold two separate cogens. The first cogen has 7 students and the second has 3. I sketch out a few questions ahead of time to ask the students. I also consult my Geometry colleague for his input on what to ask. My questioning went a lot of different places during the cogen based on student responses, but here’s what I entered with:

• What are your first impressions of the farming project you did in Geometry?
• Was the project worth your while?
• What advice can you give me as I plan a similar activity?
• What did you think of the social justice aspect of the project? Is there social issue you want to explore?
• Does me being a white man affect how comfortable you are exploring issues such as racism and sexism?

On the day of the first cogen, two students whom I didn’t invite were curiously hanging around the room. Noticing their inquisitiveness, I explained what we were doing. They seemed loosely interested and, before I know it, they are sitting down with us. Right place, right time. (One of them was part of my weekly cogen at one point this year, so she kind of knew what was happening.)

What follows is a synthesis of my students’ feedback from our cogen, which I will use to begin designing the activity.

• Find balance. Most students commented that I need to strike the right balance between learning math and exploring social justice. This means possibly frontloading the mathematics and rolling out the social justice aspect of the project slower than I would have previously anticipated. There is genuine concern in the group about not understanding the mathematics before being asked to apply it.
• Choose different launching point. Because of remote learning, last year’s students struggled on the Geometry project. They found it confusing and frustrating and struggled to say it was worth the time investment. For this reason, they recommend that I don’t use the Geometry project as a launcing point for our activity. If I do, it’ll probably cause dred and angst to sweep over our class on day 1 (many of these students rolled their eyes when I first mentioned the project to them). Instead, the kids suggest that I don’t even bring up the Geometry project — at least not initally. This was valuable insight.
• Interest rates are relevent. From what I gauged, there was interest amongst the students in studying interest rates and how they could be used in things like predatory lending. The students offered up no other particular topics that they’d like to see us study. To their defense, I did put them on the spot with this question.
• Don’t overcomplicated it. Students suggested that I be careful not to make the activity too complex. Social issues are inherently thorny and multilayered. I need to honor their complexity, but making it digestable for students is also important. Students don’t want their heads to be spinning because there’s so many factors to take into account.
• Presentations should focus on different issues. If I ask the students to present their findings at the end of the activity, each group should have a different focus. This way, students can learn something new from each presenting group.
• Be mindful of my teacher moves. The Geometry teacher is a white man — so is 60% of the math department (we’re 80% white overall). Almost all students in the cogen expressed no discomfort with exploring racism or sexism with him in the context of the 1619 project. They appreciated the need for social change and saw the project as a means to that end. That said, one young lady did wonder whether another teacher (of color?) could have led her through the activity, but did understand its purpose. I’m glad she said that because it spoke to the tension I feel exploring these sensative isssues given that I will never experience them firsthand. Another student said plainly, “Mister, it’s what you do that makes a difference.” His words were pointed and would stay with me for a long time.

As I move out of my information-gathering phase and begin planning, Gholdy Muhammad is in my head. In addition to her four pillars of identity, skills, intellect, and criticality — which I will try to address in my activity — one of her guiding principles is to start with joy. It’s terribly easy to see injustice and center it completely in activities involving social issues. Besides, what joy is there to find in predatory lending and payday loans and how they eat away at one’s finances? That said, I’ll need to ensure I make room to cultivate joy and love in whatever my activity asks students to do.

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