Why I'm Interested in Primary Sources

As I was reviewing blog posts and webinars from the Library of Congress, I found a good community builder that might be useful, especially for remote learning.  The activity is called "Hide and Seek", and the example used the picture shown here.  You can find the entire webinar with a couple more activities and a bunch of ideas here.  (Scroll down to the May 27th entry.)

Brainstorming with a colleague, there are also a bunch of number-related questions of various levels we could ask about this picture: How many people are in the picture?  If the buildings shown have stores on the ground floor, and apartments above, how many apartments might be visible in this block?  The photo was taken in New York City around 1900; what was the population of NY at that time and what was the population density?  Could we use this picture to estimate the population density?  These questions are not necessarily the most profound things to ask, but maybe learning to ask questions could be the bigger idea here, rather than just finding the answer to a problem.

Solving problems is something we do quite a bit in math classes, but I (and I know many other teachers) try to incorporate reasoning skills and other practice standards into my lessons.  So I've been thinking quite a bit about how primary sources like this are related to math classes, and at this point, I've come up with a few general categories.  We can use primary sources to ...

• practice asking math questions (like we did for the picture above)
• jump into a modeling activity, where students have to solve an ill-defined problem by making and identifying assumptions, defining variables, and practicing an iterative solving process
• engage students with a story or historical context for the math ideas
• represent data and interpret data representations (and the biases inherent in those representations)
• connect math ideas to students' experiences by looking at documents through different lenses: mathematical, historical, personal, or social justice
• make clear connections between thinking skills they use in other classes and in life and ways of thinking mathematically, like identifying facts versus inferences or asking open versus closed questions
• spark inquiry-based learning activities.

All of this really excites me.  I don't have lots of details or examples of these uses worked out yet, so that's something I'm going to work out as I continue my research.  I plan to post some ideas here, and hopefully on one of the LoC blogs as well at some point.

Picture Source: Detroit Publishing Co., Publisher. Mulberry Street, New York City. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2016794146/>.

A New Adventure

 I had forgotten that I started this blog until recently, when I needed to review some things I had written as part of my application to the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship.  So now I've started the actual Fellowship, working at the Library of Congress, and thought this would be a good time and place to record some of my thinking and learning.

I first heard about the AEF Program at an NCTM or ICTM annual convention about 15-20 years ago.  Having small children at the time, I thought taking a year off to work in Washington D.C. would not be a good idea right then.  About ten years ago, my wife found herself talking to a former Fellow, and we talked about the possibility of applying, but the timing did not seem right at that point either.

In the last few years, I've started to feel a little stale in my teaching practice.  I was feeling a little constrained in what I could do given the time and curriculum I was working with, and I had been teaching the same classes for several years.  Last October, I was talking with my wife about my feelings, and she suggested I apply for the Einstein Fellowship.  My older son had already graduated college and was out on his own, and my younger son was away at school himself, so the timing seemed good if I did get the appointment.  So now, nine months after submitting the application, here I am, working in the Library of Congress in the Learning and Innovation Office.  Well, not really in a Library building; COVID-19 has me and my colleagues working remotely for now.

And my brain is being stimulated in so many new ways!  I am learning lots of new acronyms (sometimes even the person using the acronym is not sure what it means), meeting some fantastic people who are Fellows working in other agencies or on Capitol Hill, browsing through the LoC's online collections, meeting more new people in the LIO* and beyond, and thinking about how the primary sources available online can help math teachers, and how a math teacher might view some of these sources through the "magic glasses" of math.  The information flood in the last two weeks has been like drinking from a fire hose, but at least the water's been warm.

As I browse the Library's online collections, read the articles and blog posts, and watch some recommended webinars, I've found myself deep in several rabbit holes of information.  It's been fantastic!  I already have ideas about some avenues I'd like to research, and articles I'd like to write.  I'll write more about those later.  In the meantime, here's a picture of the Library of Congress when it was still in the Capitol Building.  I think this is the version of the Library that was made of iron, to reduce the risk of losing the collection to fire for a third time.  The LoC is no longer in the Capitol (with somewhere around 200 million items in the collection, there wouldn't be room for the congress-folk), but has three buildings right across the street.  The Jefferson Building is the best known with its marble staircase, amazing murals and sculptures, and the iconic Reading Room.  When the office can return to the building, I'll be somewhere in the Madison Memorial Building or the Adams Building; both are just across the street and connected by tunnels.  (Getting to see the tunnels and the other non-public spaces is really exciting; I hope we can be back in the building soon!)

I'm really glad to have this opportunity, and tremendously grateful that the folks who oversee the AEF Program and the folks who I'll be working with saw something in my application that matched what they were looking for.  I look forward to learning with my fellow Fellows and with my LIO colleagues.  My plan is to post something here regularly about my experiences, and show my work.

Picture Credit: Chase, W. M., photographer. Congressional Library, U.S. Capitol. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2004674579/>.

* LoC is the Library of Congress, and LIO is the Learning and Innovation Office.  This office is part of the CLLE division, but I'll have to look that one up to remember what it means.  See what I mean about acronyms?

Three Views of Math

On the way home a couple weeks ago, I heard a story on the radio about why we learn math that's 500 years old.  The basic premise is that there are three ways to teach math:

1. Economic:  The important thing is the calculation.  In this paradigm, the answer to 4+5 is always 9.
2. Philosophic:  The important thing is the relationship between numbers.  Here, 4+5 could be 9, or 6+3, or 3-squared, or square root of 81, or ...
3. Artisanal:  The important thing is the units/application.  What does the 4 and the 5 mean?  If it's 4 feet and 5 inches, adding them up won't make sense.

I accept that these are the historic reasons for teaching and learning math.  As civilization developed, people needed to keep accounts, measure fields, and as they had leisure time, pursue math philosophically.  

One of the difficulties with teaching math in the present time stems from the fact that we want to include all three of these paradigms.  Unfortunately, students are not always clear about what view to use and what we expect of them.  For example, many of my students have told me they like math because "there is only one right answer: it's right or wrong."  And most of their background has been about performing calculations to get the right answer.  When I ask them to think more about the numbers, and get philosophical, some get overwhelmed because 4+5 now has lots of answers, some they know, and some they have never seen.  As they try to wrap their minds around that, we throw "word problems" at them where they have to worry about units and whether or not the answer makes sense.  (Never mind that I have seen some published problems where the answer "97 watermelons" is supposed to make sense.)

All mathematics is an abstraction, which means the way we view math focuses our work on some aspects and ignores others in order to better understand/use/apply the ideas and procedures.  Different methods of abstraction focus on different aspects.  So the economic paradigm above is an abstraction of all mathematical ideas, focusing on the calculations.  Limiting our understanding of math to this paradigm is good if we want to produce accountants, but bad if we want to produce engineers.*   Similarly, limiting math to the philosophical or the artisanal paradigm also gives us an incomplete view of math; each abstraction loses details.

So I will continue to try to teach using all three paradigms, and my apologies to my students who think I'm "doing too much".  Perhaps I am, but I promise you it's because I believe in your ability to push past your own limits.

*My apologies if that sounds insulting to accountants, I don't intend that.  My father-in-law was an accountant, and brilliant at his job.  Unfortunately, I did not understand his work very well despite his trying to teach me some basic accounting ideas late one New Year's Eve.  That's a story for another time.  The point is that accountants and engineers use math in very different ways, and teaching only one way is limiting.

New School Year!

So I spent most of last week back at school, making sure that my classroom is ready for Monday and that I have interesting and engaging lessons for the first week.  I enjoyed talking to colleagues who I had not seen in a couple months and rediscovering lesson notes I made last year.  There were of course beginning of the year meetings and activities and the all-staff picture.

But it's my gradebook with the names of all my students that keeps drawing my attention, and I keep checking it to see who else might be added to my classes.  I'm excited to see that more girls than usual have signed up for Computer Science.  A student I enjoyed teaching last year is on my roster for a different class this year.  I have students from all grade levels in my classes, and I get to teach some ELL students again.

All the names in my gradebook represent so many possibilities, so much potential, so many opportunities.  I look forward to learning and growing with all my students, and I can't wait to meet them on Monday.

Geeking out a little

I came across this TED talk from Adam Spencer, and I had to post it.  It tickles my math brain, my computer science brain, and my humanity brain, and it made me smile.

Teaching Bravery

This summer, I have been participating in some workshops about computer science, in preparation for teaching a new class in the fall.  In one session, we were referred to the TED Talk video from Reshma Saujani, the founder of "Girls Who Code".  In the talk, she referred to work by Carol Dweck, and what she said about teaching girls to be brave, not perfect, resonated with me and what I have seen in math and computer science classes.

At one point in the talk, Saujani talked about boys' responses to problems: "There's something wrong with my program" versus girls' responses to problems: "There's something wrong with me."  This may be over-generalized, but it highlights how girls, and, I think, many underrepresented groups in STEM fields, respond to difficulties.  As a white male, I automatically belong to the "STEM Club", so any difficulties I experience are not part of who I am; the difficulties are part of my process.  Unfortunately, those belonging to other groups not part of the "STEM Club" may start to believe something is inherently missing in their make-up or that STEM fields are not for them.  Just as unfortunately, those of us in the club can also start to believe this.  And it's nonsense!

Students tell me all the time that they're not good at math, and it's just not true!  Just because you have to work at something or just because you don't understand an idea quickly does not mean you are not good at it, or that you shouldn't try it!  Much of math, computer science, life even! is figuring out the next step based on limited information.  And even when you figure out your next step, you have to realize that it might not be correct and you have to do it again, and THAT'S OKAY!  Perfection is not expected nor encouraged.  Growth and improvement and moving forward are.

I teach because I want to help students embrace the struggle, because in the end it's not the math (or English or History, or ...) concepts that are the most important.  (Yes, I know, that's what's usually being graded, which makes it important, and that's my current struggle.)  Some of what I hope my students take from my classes is a willingness to work hard in the face of challenge and to wrestle with difficulty cheerfully.  With these, math (and life!) are infinitely more enjoyable.

"Success is staggering from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

The Personality Myth

I heard a piece on WBEZ's Invisibilia program, The Personality Myth, and the story resonated with me because its point was that personality is mutable.  The cells in our bodies are constantly being replaced, our brains are always being rewired, and our memories of events, even big important events, change over time.  What makes us who we are is not a fixed, unchangeable entity, but a mutable and constantly growing set of attributes that we actually have a lot of control over.

In the Invisibilia piece, a woman working with prisoners finds that her experiences, along with a conscious decision on her part, changed how she thinks about "good people" and "bad people": while there are amazingly good actions that people take as well as horrifyingly evil actions, people themselves, because of their mutability, are not so easily categorized.

All this reminds me of my reading and experience around growth mindset, and the saying "Success is never final and failure is never fatal; it's courage that counts."  What has already happened, whether good or bad, can be learned from and, as amazing, changeable people, we can choose the next steps on our path.

The implication for me and for my students is that regardless of past experiences with math, we have the ability to learn new strategies and techniques, and develop deeper understandings.  Right now, for example, I am in the middle of a two-week workshop getting ready to teach the Computer Science Principles class.  While I have some experience with CS, I am being asked to think in some new ways, and I am really enjoying this experience.  I'm not completely comfortable with the material yet, and the experience of learning new things has me both tired (brain work takes a lot of energy) and exhilarated (each new idea sparks lots of other ideas and questions for me).

At a deeper level, the Invisibilia piece reminds me that I have to be careful about categorizing my students.  Regardless of their past experiences and views about math, regardless of their apparent energy level for the topic, their gender, sexual orientation/identity, race, culture, year in school, or the thousand other attributes that make them who they are at this moment, my job is to recognize their humanness, honor what makes them unique, and help them determine the person they will become.