When I think about who I am - mathematics is such a big part of that. I truly geek out about rediscovering new things in math with my students, or reading an interesting article about mathematics, or thinking about ways to engage my students in a way so that they can try to at least half match my mathematically geeky energy. Ideally I would come up with some amazing task in my Algebra 1 class and my students would be instantly hooked and we would have a great discussion about what they wonder or what they are noticing and they would go home, try out some practice problems and we would move on to the next thing. However - my students are not me and they each have their own things that they are extremely passionate about or sometimes have things going on that completely distract them from the joys and privileges of learning.
Taking time to consider each of my students' intersectionality is a vital part of being an effective educator. It would be wonderful to hold all of our students to a high standard and not budge but our students do not always come to us with the same tools and support that we would hope or perhaps have experienced ourselves. To a degree, as a female in a largely male- dominated subject area I have faced my own struggles with feelings of whether or not I belong in a math classroom. However, because another part of my identity is having a strong family support system that has always encouraged me to pursue my passions I have the attitude that "I was just going to show those boys that girls are good (or better) at math too".
This year has been a struggle to embrace and try to connect with some of my freshman students in Algebra 1 who come to me with extremely difficult home situations, despite this being a suburban school district. No one at home to wake them up to get to the bus, or bring them to school, no one at home when they return to encourage them to do their homework or help them if they get stuck - or even make them dinner. This year I have kept a stash of snacks in my classroom because many of my students do not have an opportunity to eat breakfast in the morning or bring lunch to school. Because my students are coming to me with all of these much greater issues, how can I then motivate them to factor the quadratic so that we can see the zeros of the graph in the equation? While my love and passion for mathematics will always be a huge part of my identity - it is true what one of my undergraduate professors said - if you aren’t going into teaching for the love of your students you are doing it for the wrong reasons. This year more than ever I have really had to care for my students and make sure they have other needs met before we even attempt to factor that fabulous quadratic equation.
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AuthorMarissa McGregor, high school math teacher extraordinaire. I love my husband, daughter, and family dearly. Archives
August 2022
CategoriesThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. |