Do you hate math? Does talk of x and square roots make your head hurt? You may answer yes and yes. It’s ok. But can you whisper it so the kids won’t hear you? Seriously. This kind of negative math talk has become a badge of honor in American society. And it has seeped into our classrooms and now our kids and our teachers think it’s OK to hate math too. Not just OK, it’s kinda cool. I’m working with pre-service mathematics elementary teachers, and on the first day of class, at least four of them said they were bad at math or didn’t like it. Elementary math teachers have the power to determine if students can do more advanced math in high school, or go on to become the next US Nobel Physicist. Yes, it’s that serious.
Let’s change the way we talk about math in everyday life. Let’s overhaul those formal and informal talks and acts that we teachers do and say during math instruction. The things that teachers do and say during instruction have a powerful affect on the way that students learn math and on how they perceive their math ability. Here are 6 tips for teachers, parents, guardians, education program staff (anyone who interacts with kids really) on developing positive and precise math talk:
1. Talk About People Who are Good at Math: This person can be anybody, (or a made-up some body). Kids need to hear that people can do math. People can excel at math. There are people who love math. Recently, a mother of a nine-year old girl said that she makes a point to tell her daughter that her grandmother was good at math. “Math is in our genes,” she tells her child. She and her husband try to never have negative talk about math in front of their daughter. They have created what I call a ‘Positive Math Space,’ where their daughter is free to love math, and to excel. And guess what? The girl loves math and is great at it. Encouragement early on has lasting affects on children’s perception of math ability.
2. Suggest STEM Careers to Girls and other Students Underrepresented in STEM: A recent study suggests that it is the unconscious bias of elementary math teachers that discourage most girls from math and science. By bias, we mean ideas like: Boys are better at math than girls; Asian students are better at math; Blacks and Latinos can’t do math. But adults outside the classroom also, unknowingly, promote and maintain math bias. Instead, suggest to girls that they should become computer engineers, surgeons and scientists when they grow up.
For some students, school may be the only stable, predictable event in their lives, the teacher the only reliable adult. So what teachers say has a powerful impact on students’ self perception and life path, especially if there are few adult influencers in students’ lives.
This is more so for poor Black and Latino students who are less likely to encounter people in STEM careers in their families or neighborhoods. In addition to suggesting STEM careers, let students know the time and effort it takes to reach these goals. Show them, early on, what kinds of SATs it takes to get into medical school. The types of math scores needed to make the cut at MIT. And, like we said above, talk about people who have achieved these goals. And if you can, bring people with successful STEM careers into your classroom so that students can connect a real person with a goal.
3. Use Girls’ Names in Problem Examples: Most math problems feature a boy, a Tim, a Jack, a boy whose name sounds American and white, who is on the playground giving away apples in a subtraction problem or planting trees in a multiplication array. Choosing predominantly boys’ names is a form of unconscious bias, that has a strong influence on girls’ ability to connect to the field of math and, may even influence the likelihood that they choose a STEM related field. Girls may connect better to math, if examples contained more females.
4. Use the Names of Underrepresented Students in Problem Examples: It’s the same argument here as the one about girls names, but it deserves its own section. Let Juan be the one going up in the ski lift and have Katya calculate the gradient. All students will benefit from seeing more girls’ names and more Jamals and Rositas in the math examples thy encounter in classrooms. All students will see that math involves people from many different communities and genders and it will strengthen the perception of traditionally underrepresented students that they too can be part of a math world.
A great way to do this is to choose one student each day, and use that student’s name in every problem you create that day or in the ‘Do Now’ problem or in any way you want. That way, you incorporate the children in your own classroom. The kids love it and it’s a great self-esteem booster as well.
5. Use Precise Language When Teaching and Talking About Math: As math understanding develops in the early grades, students move from informal language–take away, make more– to more formal, precise language like subtraction and addition and the symbols connected to these terms. But often teachers don’t use precise terminology or, and I know this might surprise you, teachers don’t know the appropriate mathematical terms or the definitions of these terms.
Definitions are often ad hoc. A rectangle becomes a “stretched out square,” as a teacher said in a recent math workshop, not a four-sided figure with two long sides, two short sides and four equal angles of 90 degrees. Precise use of mathematical terms, definitions and symbols in the lower grades are the foundation of advanced mathematics. If, early on, students don’t understand that = means ‘is the same as,’ it will be difficult to master algebra or proofs later on. And under the Common Core State Standards, this kind of precision is a central idea in improving math practice.
So, before you teach or help a child with math homework or a project, review the terms, definitions and symbols you use so that students form good math habits that will help them succeed in math and life later on.
6. Vary the Types of Problem Examples: As they teach, some teachers develop a set of ready examples and problem scenarios that they draw on from year to year to help students understand math concepts. Often these set of go-to examples use similar numbers (the teacher’s favorites numbers), similar shapes, scenarios, and characters. And most teachers are not aware of their personal bias for certain numbers, shapes and problem scenarios. For example, each time some teachers draw a triangle, they draw an equilateral triangle, a triangle with three equal sides and three equal angles. To the students in such a class, ALL triangles are equilateral triangles, because, no other type of triangle is used in the classroom.
Years ago, I was a supplemental math instructor (attend classes and help students with any difficulty in scheduled sessions outside of class) at a community college in New York. In one of my sessions, we were completing the square. The student, let’s call him Hakeem, completed the square and got a result with a fractional coefficient (like ½ x). Hakeem looked alarmed and said, “You can’t get an answer like that.” I double checked it. It was correct. I asked him to explain. He pointed at the answers of previous problems, all with whole number coefficients (like 3x). “We could only get answers like these,” he said. It seemed that Hakeem’s professor never used examples that resulted in fractional coefficients, so he thought it wasn’t possible. I spent the rest of that session and the next trying to convince him otherwise. Now imagine the impact of this kind of thing in the elementary grades. It’s a powerful, yet often ignored factor in student math preparation.
I’m sure you can think of more ways to improve math learning and understanding through positive and precise talks and acts. Tell us what they are in the comments below. And share this article widely so that we can get people talking. #heidiholder #redloheducation
