Math Teacher Lounge
Math Teacher Lounge is a biweekly podcast created specifically for K–12 math educators. In each episode co-hosts Bethany Lockhart Johnson (@lockhartedu) and Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer)dive deep, with guests, into the math and educational topics you care about. Interact with us on Twitter (@mtlshow) or join our Facebook group (facebook.com/groups/mathteacherlounge) for more content.
Math Teacher Lounge
S4 - 01. Joyful math teaching with Kanchan Kant
This season on the Math Teacher Lounge podcast, we follow the theme “joyful math” and uncover its meaning.
In this episode, Kanchan Kant joins Bethany Lockhart Johnson and Dan Meyer to discuss the keyinvestment she makes at the start of the school year to ensure her math teaching will be joyful for herself and for her students for the rest of the year.
Okay, we are recording. Hey folks. Welcome back to math teacher lounge.<laugh>
Speaker 2:Hardy
Speaker 1:Off our rockstar. Yeah. Yeah. Did you like my energy there? Hey folks. Welcome back to math teacher lounge. It's a new season with your host Dan Meyer. And
Speaker 2:I'm Bethany, Lockhart Johnson. How's your summer? Dan
Speaker 1:Summer felt, um, summer for me feels, uh, really hectic as we prepare, uh, here at amplify for the new school year. And everyone's starting these new math programs. So I've been feeling, uh, quite amped up, uh, like usual in the summer, but also, uh, my kids started big kid school. So I've been seeing the educational system from, uh, the role of a parent and all the anxieties and I worry, will I be my, uh, my kids' teacher's most annoying parent<laugh> so, so, so what kind of math curriculum you using? Oh, have you heard of, uh, uh, core counting? Uh, can I lead a, a math center? Um, what's the worksheet about, I just I'm really worried. My kids are just overall gonna, gonna hate my vibe when I come around their classes. Uh,<laugh> so lots what's going on with me.
Speaker 2:Um, it's already happening for me and I have a toddler
Speaker 1:<laugh> there we go. Anyway, that's what I'm up to. That's how I'm feeling. Um, I'm curious how you're doing we've we haven't chatted in a while. We're excited about the podcast, but it's been a bit, you know, Bethany got a break from me and my antics over the summer. So, uh, how, how are we finding you here as we, as we ramp it to the new season?
Speaker 2:Uh, uh, well, let me just tell you, I have a toddler. That's kind of all I need to say, except that's not all I will say. Of course, I'll say more. I am, um, exploring I'm dipping my toe into the extracurricular toddler activities, the music classes of the toddler world, the creative movement of the toddler world. And yeah, I have lots of opinions and lots of things to say about the teachers. And I'm like, Ugh, I can't wait to be room mom. And just like,
Speaker 1:Just, just let it rip, you
Speaker 2:Know, have opinions on everything and just hope I don't get hope. I don't get kicked out of the class. Us it's been a eventfully recharging summer and we are ready for this new season. And in fact, we're so ready that we decided that we were gonna mix up this season. Just a, just a tiny bit. Shall I explain Dan? Yeah, let's
Speaker 1:Do it.
Speaker 2:So we have loved all the different topics that we have explored in the math teacher lounge world, but we kind of feel like we need to do some more deep dives. So for this season and the foreseeable seasons, well,
Speaker 1:See how it goes.
Speaker 2:Let's stick with this season for this season. We're going to be exploring a singular theme.
Speaker 1:We're not bouncing around. Yep. We're not bouncing around from a guest to guest going on, whatever shiny thing in the river bed catches our eye. We're we're gonna take one theme and see where it goes. What we working with here this season,
Speaker 2:This season, we are, are going to be exploring the idea of joyful math, joyful math. And Dan, the question I have for you is, is the term joyful math one that you use on the regular?
Speaker 1:No, it definitely is not, uh, joy. I think that joy and math are very rarely, you know, connected in the popular mind. Number one, and number two, you know, I'm kind of a, an Orry fellow, so it's, that's not my natural, um, kind of description of math. Um, but we decided that it's, it feels like an important one at the moment, uh, because a lot of math teaching, a lot of teaching in general, math teaching in particular, um, math teaching is often not a joyful discipline for students, um, where, you know, I I've done, I've like done some research while you look at what people type into Google. And I looked at like, what they, uh, why am I bad at X? And I looked at that for where X is math, where it's science, where it's, um, reading where it's history. And it, it was just wild to see how many more hits there are out there on the internet for why am I bad at math people don't really associate math with joy, but also we're look at, um, joyful math in terms of joyful math teaching. Uh, math teaching teaching in general is a, is a tough feel at the moment with a lot of teachers leaving teaching. And those who remain are trying to are having a lot of soul searching and thinking about why am I here and how do I sustain this work? Um, and in an environment that seems hostile to my interests or my talents, um, or work life balance. And so that'll be the theme that we're gonna dis uh, kind of uncover over the course of our season, talking to various interesting guests, including one today about, yeah, joyful math teaching and joyful math. And to help us think about what joyful math teaching looks like. We figured we'd first look at what UN joyful math teaching looks like, oh, what happens to be the case that we've, uh, yeah, we've, um, been in a pandemic as you might be aware. And teaching has been challenging. And the NEA, our national education association surveyed its member teachers and asked them, uh, the following question gave a list of issues, um, that school employees have experienced and asked for each one indicate how serious of a problem this is for you. This is a survey where more than half of members said they are more likely to leave or retire sooner than planned because of the pandemic. And this is almost double the numbers from July, 2020. It's really hard to keep track of teacher departures and, and unfilled vacancies across states. So I don't wanna like blow this up, uh, out of proportion, but it does indicate some, some real challenges in teaching. So Bethany, I was curious, what do you think, um, the, like at the top of the list, like what kinds of factors issues facing educators would you imagine? There are.
Speaker 2:So if I'm to understand you correctly, these are reasons someone is not actively experiencing joy in the profession of teaching. Like why would they leave? Exactly,
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Well, the number one thing that came to mind for me, well, okay. Wait, wait, one other caveat I need to ask about, you said specifically pandemic related or just in general, because if it's pandemic related, then I, I think, well, there's health issues, right. That people sure, sure. That people are concerned about, but in, yeah, in general, the thing that came to mind was a lack of support from administration districts, lack of funding and overcrowding in classrooms. Like, you know, I saw somebody had 40 students in their classroom, so those are the two things that I, I can imagine like top on someone's list that would make them experience less than a joyful day.
Speaker 1:Yeah. There's a, there's a bunch of you kind of identifying here. So number seven on the list is lack of respect from parents and the public, um, which is like 76% of teachers call that out as, um, as, uh, serious, um, for them, uh, others that kind of, you kind of, uh, circled around in terms of resources go like, um, not enough planning or unstructured, uh, time in the job kind of ties into resources. Yeah. But there's, there's others that on the list that, uh, I'm, I'm curious, you wanna take on the swing at it, given what I've said here,
Speaker 2:I feel like too much being asked to them, like being asked to wear too many hats, like they're being asked to not only teach their class, but also cover all the vacancies and supervise recess and, you know, make a delicious, nutritious lunch. That's what came to mind. Am am I close?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Number four in the list, unfilled job, op openings leading to more work for remaining staff, people covering, um, you know, not just the, the, kind of the, the external to teaching work like you're describing. Um, but also just taking on like losing your prep period, um, to take on a class that has been unfilled for all kinds of D reasons. Yeah. Um, yeah,
Speaker 2:We, I'm only, I've only gotten the fourth. I, I give me one clue, one clue about,
Speaker 1:So, I mean like, so number one is number one is general stress from the coronavirus pandemic, you know, which I feel like
Speaker 2:Give you that it's
Speaker 1:A layer. Yeah. Yep, yep, sure. Yep. And then, uh, number two, close behind is feeling burned out, which I think ties into what you're describing as well. I'm, I'm giving Bethany credit on that one. Um, the third one is very different from the ones you've been describing. I think, I think, I think I cannot in good faith. Give you even partial credit for this one. I'll just say it. Wait it's, um, student
Speaker 2:Dan, this is not how you give clues.
Speaker 1:Here's a clue it's student absences due to COVID 19. I'm just really hard to deal student absences. That's your clue that
Speaker 2:Wasn't a clue that you told me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's see. I think, I think that's largely it there's also pay is too low is on the list, student behavioral issues on the list. And I think that about covers it. So that's that all of that, that basket of items has led to more than half of teachers in this survey, um, saying that they're more likely to leave or retire from education sooner than planned. And I don't know. I think we all know teachers who have, have bailed.
Speaker 2:I've never played a board game with you, Dan, but if we ever play a board game, I, I, I just you're, we're gonna work on your clue giving, cuz I want to keep guessing. And you just told me
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. In all seriousness, the<laugh> in all seriousness, I think yes. The stress of the pandemic and students being absent, what some folks are calling unfinished learning, all of those pieces do play into it. But a lot of those things that you're mentioning on the list are things that are not unique to the pandemic, right? Yeah. Like those are things that I feel like there is some modicum of control that we could have over shifting the way the culture of the teaching profession is going so that we could create a more joyful experience for educators, administrators, and students.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Good call out. That's exactly right. We could tax the people who are not in the classrooms more and increase the pay to, uh, to classroom teachers. You know, there we go. Oh,
Speaker 2:Bingo. Why didn't we ask you sooner Dan, for your, your, your wisdom.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm solved by Dan. Um, yeah, good point though. Um, so I just, I read that and yeah, I think that the there's been, some people have critiqued the NEA for being, uh, like very alarmist about teacher departures as the year has ramped up. It has not been, um, quite the, the, the flood of departing teachers as was predicted and thank heavens for that, but that, that, that should, we should still be very bummed if teachers are unhappy and wanting to leave and feel like they can't leave. That is, um, definitely not good. So we were really excited to bring, uh, to the table, someone who has is, is it just a very joyful teacher and one in a very intentional way. Um, someone who has, um, a lot of, of discipline and how she approaches the job and the students in it and tries to create a joyful environment environment for herself, con, um, conscience is, uh, math and computer science teacher at Newton north high school in Newton, Massachusetts. Um, she's been sharing her love for math and with her students, uh, for the past four years. And while also being instrumental in setting the culture and ethos of the math department at her school and her role as the assistant department head. But we don't welcome you on the show con to help us understand, uh, joy and math teaching. Thanks for, uh, thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Welcome. Thank
Speaker 3:You for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:One of my friends, her son was asked as his first math homework assignment to write out his math bio. And I loved that idea because we got to hear a little bit about your bio from like a broader perspective. But if we were to ask about your math bio, I will speak for myself to say, say like automatically certain images flash into my mind, right. To think about my relationship, my evolving relationship with math. But I'm so curious if I was to ask you, what's your math bio, how did you become the person mathematically speaking that you are today? Would you mind sharing a bit about that?
Speaker 3:Of course I would love to. So I was born and raised in India and I belong to a family which considers mathematics to be extremely important to succeed in life. My father used to have me add and subtract license plates since I was four years old when we were out and about, I loved math in school, it just made like complete sense to me. It was logical and you know, it was my favorite subject. I loved it all through high school. I had a confidence speed breaker in undergrad. When in my second semester I almost failed the engineering math course that I took. That was the first time math felt like too much and not like my best friend, which it was supposed to be. Uh, so it was a while before I could summon the courage to take on another math course in college. But once I did that, it was like old times I realized I had to perceive through the challenging bits. And once I did that, I, it started to make sense again and through my journey, as an educator, speaking to people from various backgrounds and like coming to United States, I realized that math is challenging for everyone at one time or another, for some people that is elementary school. And for some others, it is college or even later either way does not mean that you are not a math person. When I was in college, I felt I was not a math person. Whereas my sister, my very own sister said the same thing about math and middle school. Both of us use math every day. And we are definitely definitely math people. So for me to be a math person is to perceive, to approach problem solving in a logical manner and to find the joy in the process as well as the answer.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. Yeah. I like a lot of people have a moment where they feel like almost betrayed by what, what they thought was a close friend of theirs, um, with math where it's like, wait, I thought we were, I thought we were tight. You know, I thought we were cool. You and me. And, uh, there's that, that moment. And I wonder if that's been a useful moment for you to, you know, bring back now and then as a teacher with students who might feel that even, you know, in, in high school or in a secondary school as a kid.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Like when I talk to students and tell them, yes, I had difficulty in math too. It has not always been easy for me. And there are still things I struggle with sometimes then it's like more modeling for them that you have to perceive, you should perceive. And once you do that, it makes sense and you can feel successful. So I almost every year I end up sharing the story with my students.
Speaker 2:There's so much value in that, right. That you are sharing that vulnerability with students. And to say your relationship with mathematics has not been, you know, smooth sailing the whole way through. There were times when you had to work harder than others.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Really fun to hear about you and your, your father as well. I, I tried to ask my five year old to do some skip counting the other day, like, okay, cool. You're hot stuff. You can count, you know, up by ones, but what about by twos? And it just, the moment really fell flat. And I, I watched myself becoming the kind of parent who is whose enthusiasm for math is one day resented by, uh, his children. I just, I, I feel a lot of, yeah, I felt your anxiety conscience with, uh, math itself. And now I feel anxiety is like someone who loves math and loves to teach math and may one day alienate the people closest to him. Um,<laugh>
Speaker 3:I don't like my future. I have a three month old. I do not like this future of mine. If I have to go through what you're going through. Uh, oh,<laugh>
Speaker 1:You got this. So Conran, you're going back to the classroom coming up here at the time of this recording of, uh, a, a few weeks out. And we're thinking about like the, the kind of ways that, um, that math teachers sustain a disposition that is joyful. Um, how are, how are you feeling right now, as far as going back to class after this summer, are you feeling excited, anxious, some combo, tell us about it.
Speaker 3:Um, I would say combo, but more excited than anxious. Uh, I was on maternity leave, as I mentioned before the school year ended. So, and I missed the students dearly. Like my students are what gives me hope in the darkest times. They are thoughtful. They're empathetic. They're so, so eager to learn. And very soon in my, into my teaching career, I realize that if I take the time to get to know my students and make them feel safe and seen in my class, teaching them math would be so much easier and so much more fun. So I'm a little worried about this being like fourth year into the pandemic, but let's see, last year I felt the students were finding it difficult to interact with and work with their classmates because they had not been doing it for so long. So I'm hoping this year would go a little better and I'm really looking forward to working with them and building community and see how it goes.
Speaker 1:So if I'm understanding you correctly, you, you are feeling very well recharged here. You had basically an extended summer with this maternity leave, basically just like a lot of rest and relaxation over the last, like several months. Um, if I get you here. Um, so anyway, um, glad I'm glad for that for you. And, uh, yeah. I also hear you, um, on, um, the, yeah, the, the difficulties of teaching post pandemic or mid pandemic. Anyway, thanks for sharing that.
Speaker 2:What I love is I hear you being so intentional, like thinking about those relationships and thinking about that community that you want to build, you know, how do you, how do you hope that you're gonna cultivate joy in your teaching this year? I mean like, are there certain routines or disciplines that you, that you specifically call forth or that you think other teachers should think about?
Speaker 3:So at the start of every school year, I dedicate like about three to four weeks to set up the classroom culture, both social and academic. Um, I call my classroom a learning community. Uh, we start with community circles. We do icebreaker activities, group building and all those kinds of things. But most importantly, we do a lot of collective problem solving. So I try to present students with problems, which can be solved using multiple strategies and have multiple entry points, basically are low floor, high ceiling problems. These could be stretch problems, uh, that they have seen before, like concepts that they already know or logical puzzles, or just wrapping their heads around different problems. Uh, then I have students share their strategies, the more strategies they have on the board, the more successful I think the problem was, um, every year, inevitably students come up with strategies that I've never ever seen before for the same problems that I do. And so I have students come up to the board, they would share their strategies. If they're not ready for that, they would walk me through their strategies. And I would write their name on the board with different colored markers and everything, basically to give them choice and agency. It also shows them that the process of doing the problem is so much more important than just getting the right answer and that it is okay to make mistakes in our learning community. I use a lot of vertical whiteboards, some concepts and problems align so well with the vertical surfaces, especially when students can explore together, learn from each other. So I do a lot of that as for routines, I would say, um, consistency is the key. I consistently reinforce that I want to hear multiple strategies, that it is okay to make mistakes. I am willing to learn from you as much as you're willing to learn from me. So all like that consistency in culture more than the routines is I feel important to bring that joy.
Speaker 1:That's super interesting. Thanks for that. So I've heard, I hear two common objections or two, two common concerns to using, um, rich tasks or doing problem solving. And I think I heard like answers to those two common reservations within what you described there, but I wonder if we can kind of bring it to the surface. And so one of the reservations is around the time that those problems take and another is that teachers often feel like, well, I might, I might be surprised, you know, I might not know what to do with what a student does. And I thought I was hearing like some very interesting answers to both of those kinds of reservations from you, but would you just, would you surface those up if you, if you have some,
Speaker 3:So in terms of time, I feel if I spend the time at the beginning of the year, setting up that community and doing those problems, it makes learning the math and learning the concepts much more faster throughout the rest of the year. And even when I am trying, like, even throughout the year, if we are doing a warm up problem, as I call it, which has multiple strategies, that's gonna clarify so many more concepts. When we talk about those five, 10 strategies of doing the same problem, then going through multiple problems to clarify those concepts. So for me, it actually saves time instead of, uh, taking more time.
Speaker 1:Hmm. That's super interesting. It's an investment I'm hearing, uh, from you that, yeah, you, you might not be hitting the curriculum quite as hard early on. Um, but that all of a sudden you're in this, in this, in the spring and it's like, oh wow, we've been moving so much faster through territory that has been, uh, more challenging. Exactly. What would you, what would you say, uh, to, to, um, you know, comfort concerned educators or, or to address the concern that I don't know, um, what I'll do with, with these five, 10 different strategies you say, I, I always see strategies that I've never anticipated. Like, it's a good thing, you know, like you're happy about that. I think that's a, a very intimidating thing for lots of educators. What would you say to that?
Speaker 3:Um, I think like, uh, for me, it's, it's a good kind of discomfort. Uh, that means like a student is teaching me something, which is actually doing two things, one modeling for them that I'm willing to learn and that I don't know everything. And two also telling them that they're mathematicians, they know what they're doing. They're not just receivers of math, they're actually creating it. So for me, that is very, very important.
Speaker 2:I love that so much. When you think about your students and you're about to start this new school year, how do you hope your students will experience math in your classroom?
Speaker 3:So I hope my students can see the beauty and joy of math. They can see that math, um, is a way to see the world and not as something we have to do to get through school. So my hope for my classroom is that we can learn to problem solve and preserve through problems and learn from each other and not just get through the curriculum because like, I think math is a wonderful way to learn these skills, which are so important when you get out of high school. Most importantly, I just wanna see, make sure that my students see themselves as mathematicians. And like one of the things that like I have to share with you, dad, because like my, one of my highlights for the year has to be the Desmos art project. Nice. I do it every year for the past three years, I think since I've started teaching sophomores and I do it as a unit assessment for functions and my students design something that is meaningful to them, using all the different kinds of functions and colors and shading and everything that you can think of in Desmos. Thank you so much for that though. Uh, it is such a cool way for me to see them do that. Like I have sat seen such amazing creations. One of my students once made a scaled working model of a solar system wherein the planets were rotating at relative speed. The Saturn had rings and they were like asteroids and everything. And then it was beautifully done. Then there was another one who did a very, very detailed Vail scenery, her reasoning. I wanna be a Marine biologist and I wanna study whales. So this is what is meaningful to me. So like that one project is just a culmination of everything that I want students to see in math and in my classroom. And like I do more of those kinds of things, but that is one thing that it's one of the highlights of my year.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I love hearing that. Yeah. Shout out to the team at Desmo studio for building and continue to develop a tool list that so good for, for art and animation, even in addition to some mathematics, um, with a more computational kind. Um, yeah, that's really exciting. I wanted to, like, what's interesting to me is that you teach high school. And I, I think that like students at that age have a very well defined sense of what math is and who they are as mathematicians. And then along along you come, you know, and like offer this really interesting disruption, you know, in their, in their sophomore year of school of high school that like, oh, this, this can be totally different, this relationship who I am. Um, and that's, that's, uh, just really exciting. I imagine it's a, it's a very surprising year. I would imagine that first month, I would imagine it's a very surprising month for a lot of, uh, your sophomores.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is. I mean, that's why I take that time to build that community because then that sets the tone and the relationship that we're gonna have for the rest of the year. Students get to know how to work with each other. They get to know each other, that whole piece, um, is like super important because of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's awesome. Um, so here's the thing like we're, we're, we're exploring these ideas about joyful math teaching and what it will take to cultivate restore, uh, reclaim joy in math, teaching this next year. And you've offered us these really interesting ideas, uh, some, some very, you know, philosophical and some technical about how you spend time, um, in ways that lead to joy in the spring for you and your students love that we don't want to as hosts of this as, as, as researchers, investigators of this joyful math teaching idea, um, we don't wanna let say it's all up to teachers to change their mindset, to do different technical practices, and that will lead to joy. We also wanna be really attentive to the, the environment that surrounds you, the, the people who are around to support you, um, the policy makers, the, the social structures that influence your joy in very significant ways. So what, what we would love to know from you is H how do, how are you, um, supported by the greater educational community in, in keeping your joy in your work? I'm thinking, especially about administrators, you know, front office, staff, parents, even, um, can you, can you name a few ways for, for those sorts of people who listen to this podcast, um, how they can cultivate a math teacher's joy this coming year?
Speaker 3:I would say trust, I think more than anything, educators want administrators, parents to greater educational community, uh, to trust them to be professionals and experts in what they do that does not mean that we don't want to learn that we don't want feedback, that we don't wanna get better. It just means that we keep the wellbeing of our students as our top priority. And we would like to be trusted to do just that. Also just keeping in mind that whether we like it or not, we are still adjusting to the new normal while recovering from the worst of the pandemic times. A lot of us are recovering from trauma. A lot of our students are recovering from trauma and we need time and space for our social and emotional wellbeing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm really curious congen. You've done a lot of, uh, uh, work in your area with your grading team and in thinking about equitable and biased resistant instruction. I'm curious how, uh, how you see those efforts lining up with, uh, creating joyful math learning conditions for all students, not just students from a, a dominant culture of math doing, let's say
Speaker 3:For me, creating an equitable environment in a classroom is most important because once you have that, that's when you have the relationships, that's when you have the culture, that's when all students actually thrive. Uh, so to that end our school and our department has been doing a lot of work around grading practices. We, uh, actually assess how we grade students, where the biases, what we can do to make them more biased resistant. Should we move to mastery based grad? Like that's something I've been experimenting with for the past two years through the pandemic, I started doing mastery based grad so that my students can get more opportunities to show that they have learned the content. And so like just little things which help bridge the opportunity gap. I would say another project that our school undertakes is called the calculus project wherein we have students, uh, black, Latin, and low income families sign up for that and are recommended for that. And then we do summer classes and yearlong support to preview the material for next year, not as a remedial class, but to actually set students up for success in AP classes for the coming year. So we have the community buildup. We have the courses we have like math support. It's, it's a very beautiful thing actually. And I've been working with, uh, that program for four years now. Uh, so yeah, so those are my ways of creating more equity in our school.
Speaker 2:That's so beautiful and I deeply, deeply wish you had been my high school math teacher. And I have to say that the theme that I kind of keep hearing is this intentionality, how you are so intentional about your work, not just with what your students are learning, but how they're learning it, how they are engaging with this subject and how they are building their own relationship. You talked a little bit about your relationship over the years with mathematics, but how are your students building that relationship? And so I'm just very appreciative of you sharing that with us and with our listeners. And we are so excited to have learned a little bit about, like, I feel like I got a little mini peak into your classroom.
Speaker 3:Thank
Speaker 2:You. And can I, can I say that if you are listening to this prior to October at NCTM Los Angeles, you will get to hear country and con speak at shadow cot. Can I give that, can I give that away, Dan? Is that, is that
Speaker 1:You can drop that. Yeah, it, I drop it. It's pre top secret.
Speaker 2:Can I drop it?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do it, Dan and I will be in the audience cheering you on. Um, it's been a joy to learn with and from you, and we are so excited to just, you know, kind of keep marinating on some of these ideas about how we can, can continue to be intentional about creating joyful math spaces for our students. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank
Speaker 3:You. Thank you so much for the fear. It was a real pleasure.
Speaker 1:So Bethany, I loved hearing Huon talk about like, uh, both her, just her joyful personality, but how she cultivates joy through craft and technique through, um, you know, through the, the various ways she interacts with students in intentional ways that those make the job more joyful for her. And I thought it was really interesting to hear, um, her talk about how autonomy is the thing that she needs most in her job environment to feel like she can be joyful in her work. In that context, I saw something on Twitter popped up for me in my, you know, my many Twitter wanderings. This is a, this is a segment we might call. Um, Dan fi finds something on Twitter and shares it with Bethany. Um, which we'll, we'll tighten that up a little bit, but I'm sending this over to you right now, and I'd love to know as you check this out, what you're seeing and what you're thinking and we'll chat about how it relates to, uh, our interview here in a moment.
Speaker 2:All right. I I'm ready send it over it's opening. So this appears to be a document by the way, outlining, maybe it's a district, maybe it's administration they're outlining expectation type and expectation guidelines. Hmm. Okay. So the ex and these are lesson plan expectations, expectation type timeliness plans are due no later than 6:00 PM. Friday prior to the week of instruction, comprehensive all activities for the week for all subjects taught should be included and complete by due date and time plans should have at minimum, the following C template for detail. Okay. So then it goes through the things that the plans need to have the topic title, target, the objective, the activities, the sequence, the display agendas to be displayed backward design. Okay. So basically<laugh>, we were just talking about, uh, overwhelm. And when I see this document listeners, have you ever received something from your administrator or anyone let's lets take it more broadly that is requesting something of you that would take so much time to complete and be so out of touch with your lived reality that it, it really genuinely sucks the joy out of the experience. So the first thing that I see by this document, and again, the goal of whichever district's plan, this is, is that these expectations will lead. Now, mind you, I am a fan of like, you know, looking ahead, I, I'm not a like, oh, Hey, what am I gonna teach in five minutes? No, but the idea that then it lays out all of the things in such detail that you're gonna be teaching feels like one of those, those pacing guides where, oh, move on to the next page. Whether or not your students have any sort of sense making whatsoever. So my first thought is, oh, sad. I have to stay here. I'll be there past 6:00 PM, but I'm gonna be there trying to make the plans for the next week based on what I think my students have learned. Hmm it's sounds like a little bit of a bummer. Dan, what did you think when you saw this and did I do a fair description of what it is or
Speaker 1:No, it's, it's a tough one to describe. Cause it's basically a wall of text and, uh, commands from, from an administrator who like, I just have to imagine has just like acres and acres of teachers trying to, trying to beat down their door to teach at this school, if this is how you're gonna treat your teachers. I mean just, yeah. The idea of having a week I'm with you, you don't wanna just like, just jump in, see to your pants, but the idea of having a full week of lessons for every section you teach, every prep you teach planned and submitted with a every minute, basically Morsed out to different goals. It says down here, you gotta like for all of these download a CSV of, of your, of grades and whatnot and attach those, um, it's the sort of thing, like you said, if you there's, there's some, there are some edicts that you get from administration where you just have to laugh or just like, you have definitely missed like what I am willing to do here. It's so far beyond. Yeah. I can't imagine it. And it just felt like, uh, yeah, it was a great way to get teachers like, uh, country to feel very like a real lack of autonomy. Like it's this would not work. I don't think.
Speaker 2:And it's not even like willing to do, like, let's say you're even willing to produce it. One. I'm not, I am not<laugh> okay. Let's say that me, the role follower is will, is like, there we go. Okay. I'm gonna attempt to meet these demands. One. Most teachers were just, you know, they probably would put baloney down there anyway. Not saying that I would, but I'm saying like, they're just, it's clearly just a hoop that they're, they're having to jump through and to
Speaker 1:Yeah. Compliance, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Compliance, compliance. There you go. Uh, and two, yeah, it feels like it's about control and not trusting the teacher. And I love that. Kuchen said that trust is what she needs. Right. You're hiring me. Yeah. Yes. I still have lots to learn, but you're trusting me. And you're creating an environment where I can continue to learn from and with my students. And if I was being asked to submit this tone every Friday before six, that is predicting, what does it say? Anticipating the steps necessary for student mastery? You know, I kind of feel like maybe it's like that one or two teachers where maybe they feel like, oh, I don't trust that teacher or that teacher, isn't doing a good job, whatever. We better do this for all of the teachers, but then it'ss not gonna change the practices of that one teacher and all the other teachers are gonna be resentful.
Speaker 1:Like if there was like feedback that came back to you on, you know, on lesson plans or there was some like something that was very constructive or productive, like maybe that would be different, but it, it really just feels like these are gonna go into a digital drawer somewhere and not be, not be looked at
Speaker 2:At all. Yes. The digital drawer, like I'm gonna send you this report and then nothing is going to happen with it. Except that four hours of my time. Well, you wouldn't do it, but<laugh>,
Speaker 1:You've, you've worn me down. You've worn me down. I'm now I'm now putty in your hands and uh, more compliant for the next thing. And I also just wanna shout out the administrator today, who I emailed asking about like a teacher participating in a project and this teach, this administrator said, I have a standing policy, not to email teachers over summer break, which you know, oh, there's administrators out there just, just doing the, doing the good work, you know, trusting teachers, watching out for them, trying to be a force multiplier for teachers making the, making the road wider, the way easier for teachers. So shout out to y'all doing the out there. Really appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Okay. Wait, wait about that email thing, quick question. Did you ever check your email over the summer?
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah. That's one way in which I was the, you know, I, I just love email, you know? Oh. Someone wanted to reach out, oh, oh, banana Republic wants to tell me about, about new clothes that are on, on offer.<laugh> I mean like, it's just, I love those personal emails. So yeah, I, I do, I did check my email over the summer.
Speaker 2:Somebody emailed me recently and they emailed me at like two in the morning. And because I currently have a toddler, I received the email at four in the morning because you know, the best thing to help myself fall back asleep is to hop on my, my phone. Right. Like I'm already up trying to get my toddler back to sleep. I might as well start scrolling anyway. So the person had this little thing at the bottom of their email and it said I have something to the effect of, I have really like wonky work hours. I may be sending this outside of the like more standard nine to five. Yeah. But please don't feel pressure in any way to respond outside of your time. Do you a lot, would you appreciate that, seeing that or does it make you feel like you should respond? Cuz I almost responded at four in the morning and maybe that says something about's
Speaker 1:Just telling you not to respond.
Speaker 2:I know it was helpful.
Speaker 1:It says don't but you're like, but you're like, uh, what if, what if they're saying that? Because they really expect me to respond and this is one of many ways that you and I are different. I, I, I'm always happy to see that.
Speaker 2:And do you respond, I I've texted you in the evening because I, you know, I have some won hours. Do you, you respond to things like, do you have a set? Like where's your boundary there or when you were in the classroom, where was your boundary there? Did parents have your phone number?
Speaker 1:No. I gave kids my cell phone number for a couple years and it was, was a, a wobbly, uh, experiment. Um, but parents will get an email, email, you know, back and forth with you. And I think the best thing to like, I, I love just like adding some friction, some latency into the kind of the, the chain, you know, like I, I, I hate going like back and forth, like da, da, da, da, and then like respond and then da, da da respond. And it just like goes back and forth. So just like just sitting back for an hour or two hours, you know, not responding, just let someone cool down, calm down. Email email just gets you more email. That's like if you send an email, you are just making it more, give more email. It's a, it's a, you know, it's a problem.
Speaker 2:Are you one of the zero people?
Speaker 1:My inbox is at zero. Most days before
Speaker 2:Work.
Speaker 1:I, I end work every day with inbox at, uh, at zero that's.
Speaker 2:Um, you'reY,
Speaker 1:That's just, you know, who are
Speaker 2:You?
Speaker 1:You know, you should take my life. You should take my, uh, my, you should get my per my life coaching Bethany. I give you a discount since we're, uh, we're math teacher, lunch pals. But, um, yeah, I, I, I, I can help.
Speaker 2:Thank you for, um, for, for qualifying where our, where our Aldo, where our pal lives. I wouldn't even tell you how many are in my inbox point is if you are actively starting the school year, we celebrate you and we are here and over the next few months, we're gonna be diving into joyful math and all that. Definition's gonna keep evolving, but I wanna say something that is making me feel a little joyful. Dan, you ready?
Speaker 1:Tell me
Speaker 2:You and I in person at NCTM, the national C for teachers and mathematics. Yes. It's coming up and we, miles are going to be recording math teacher lounge, live, live in person. And I hear there's gonna be like a t-shirt cannon and there's gonna be, you know, like musicians marching through the, the aisles or something, a marching band, a marching
Speaker 1:Can yeah. Trained animals. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But the point is, I'm so excited, Dan, and you know, when I see you, I might just, I just, it's been so long since I've seen you, Dan. I, I I'd love to give you a big old embrace.
Speaker 1:You might just, you might just cry. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be great. Yeah. It's gonna be, you're gonna, it's gonna be awesome for you folks to see me and me and Bethany have a, a real awkward first hug since the pandemic. And, uh, but it's gonna be a blast to hang with us in person. We'll have, uh, some special guests, probably, uh, some, uh, uh, some interesting segments you folks should, uh, stop on by, uh, at NCTM. If you're gonna be there highly recommended
Speaker 2:Not, we will be broadcasting that episode. You're gonna get to hear we're we're recorded live. It's gonna happen. In the meantime, you can find us at MTL show on Twitter, or you can find us in our Facebook group, math teacher lounge. We can't wait to hear from you. And we'd love to hear what, what makes math joy hope for you? Where, where, where can we add a little bit more joy to you? This, this season. So thrilled to be back. Thanks for listening.
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