- Math class were about what we do and see and imagine every day?
- We learned math in order to describe what we experience and can transform and create?
- Understood the critical role of language(s) for ensuring that math can belong to everyone?
For the winter & spring of 2019, I was in the Netherlands at the Freudenthal Institute learning how Dutch teachers and schools adapt to meet the needs of students who have come to their country from around the world. While there I also met with Dutch educators who collaborated with Catherine Twomey Fosnot to bring us Young Mathematicians at Work. This series of books had shown me how to approach creating a classroom in which lived experience, creativity and relationships are at the center of what students do.
Unexpectedly, I learned a tremendous amount from how bilingual Dutch-English teachers reach across language barriers. Now I want to learn and understand as much as I can about the intersection of math and language so that ALL of my students’ experiences can be at the center of what they do.
My curiosity comes from questions I ask of myself, my colleagues, and our schools and systems.
- How do we teachers support students across language barriers, genres, registers and cultural code-switching?
- How can we link language and the power of mathematical thinking to address bias and discrimination?
- How do we teach (or not) towards and ideal that math belongs to everyone?
Now that I have returned to teaching eight grade in Olympia, Washington, I have more questions than before I started. But I know for sure the way to a world in which math belongs to everyone lies in bridging math and language(s) so that everyone can use the power of mathematics to describe and transform their world.
Thank you for joining me.
Warmly,
Jana Dean
I am interested to find out if, and how, other communities teach financial literacy i.e. things like fixed-rate vs. adjustable rate mortgages, which credit card is best for you, and stocks vs. bonds or both etc.
Wonderful wondering Paula. I will keep this in mind as I head out to classrooms next week.
I am so interested in your investigations, Jana. I am currently working with teachers and students in a primary school for older students in Belize City. Supporting students across cultural barriers and language barriers (mostly Kriol to English) is a significant challenge. The teachers come from the same culture as the children except for the differences in economic status (huge differences there), but because the teachers were successful in an essentially British colonial academic environment, there are still understandings to be achieved.
Furthermore, addressing the vestiges of colonialism, slavery, and ongoing racism, is paramount to my decision to teach mathematics in the first place, so I am filled with joy to be walking along beside you as you do this work.
Looking forward to learning along with you on this journey. Will you be visiting primary schools or secondary? I’m curious what your week is going to look like in terms of time in schools, time at the Institute?
Elham, thanks for your questions. I am still a bit curious about the same thing. I am finding teachers and schools very open to my visiting and hungry to learn more about teaching math with a focus on access for everyone regardless of culture and language. For now, I am assisting my mentor Michiel Doorman with an instructional design course on Monday and have reserved Thursdays so that I can attend research presentations that occur on those days. I love being there among my officemates in the workspace I share with graduate students and research assistants. Every day at the institute, I have conversations that push my thinking and give me new ideas. I expect similar things will occur in classrooms as well.
Hi there! So sorry I haven’t had the chance to check in here yet – but now I did, and I am so intrigued by your investigation. Here in New Mexico, we have students who struggle as second language learners in a top-down system that highly values “achievement” as measured by a very narrow set of criteria. Their familes are affected by the stressors of moving to a new culture and the fears surrounding the current political climate regarding immigration. Culturally, a centuries old conflict exists between the “Norteño” (families with European Spanish ancestry) vs. “Mexican”, families who are more recent immigrants from Mexico and South America which can create great animosity in school settings. Over-identification of ELL students in the Special Education system is also a problem. In contrast, in some place, students needing services are overlooked because is is assumed that deficits are due to language issues and not learning issues. The standardized tests used by the state are exceedingly text-heavy in the name of “context”, which puts low-language students at an immediate disadvantage. I’ve been working over the last five years with the MidSchoolMath team to implement video-based curriculum that engages students in contextual mathematical scenarios that are not text-based, to try to level the playing field while teaching explicit vocabulary. I am very excited to hear about your work – thanks for the invitation to participate!
My interest has been piqued and I followed the links to the Young Mathematicians at Work textbooks. I was able to access a sample and it looked very interesting. I am interested in hearing more about your classroom experiences with these materials. In what grade level(s) did you use the materials? Are they commonly used in the Netherlands? How did you learn about these materials?