I am an unlikely Math Specialist.

My journey as a mathematician began only eight years ago when I fell in love with math language. Language of all kinds has always fascinated me. In fact, if you had asked me back when I was a third grade teacher, “Where do you see yourself in eight to ten years?”, my unequivocal answer would have been “Reading teacher.”

I so loved teaching reading to my students that my former building principal called me a “Master Teacher.” When it came to math instruction, however, I was bored silly, approaching it more like a “Page-a-day-in-the-textbook Teacher.” I knew something was missing, but could not figure out what it was.

Lucky for me, a new third grade teacher in my building changed my thinking about math. One day, while walking through the hallway, I overheard the most beautiful math language emanating from her classroom and I stopped to listen. She generously invited me in. Over the next two years, this new teacher and I collaborated and planned and examined data. We spent hours talking only about math. I remember, during one of our conversations about adding 3-digit numbers, she said, “You know, you don’t have to start adding in the ones column. You can start in the hundreds column.” I had never thought this way. I was simply teaching according to the rules I had been taught. I taught math procedurally.

Suddenly, I was reading every book about math I could get my hands on. My colleague knew her math inside and out and I wanted to know it like she did. She had opened my eyes to seeing math as more than mere procedure and I began looking at numbers differently. Between the books I read and the conversations we had, I fell deeply and swiftly in love with math.

Today, I have the title “Math Coach” and, soon, I will be the “Math Specialist” in my building. Do these titles mean I know everything I need to know about K-6 math content? Absolutely not. I am, however, fearless in both my pursuit of new knowledge and in my desire to ask deeper, more probing questions. Throughout my years of professional self-discovery, as I transitioned from classroom teacher to math coach, my number one priority has always been to increase the content knowledge of my colleagues so that they, in turn, could become more effective math teachers. In short, I want them to really see and fall in love with math like I did.

In my coach/specialist position, I have also fought, and will continue to fight, a system that evaluates teachers as “effective” or “highly effective” based on data and not by how much risk they are willing to take as learners. I do this because taking risks and branching out in one’s relationship to math is essential in learning to love it as a discipline and becoming a better math instructor.

I think we should all want our students to be successful mathematicians and math thinkers, and to help them in any way possible. As the NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) mission statement reads, our goal should be “mathematical success for all.” I want this for our students, but it will not happen unless teachers increase their math content knowledge. Do I think most districts have this as their goal, too? Yes, but I think they are unsure about how to make effective change happen.

Below is a list of suggestions for facilitating this kind of “effective change.” Is it a complete list? No, but it’s a good start.
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BE VULNERABLE

If adults want students to embrace a growth mindset, we need to embrace it as well. I tell my teachers all the time to be unafraid of saying, “I’m confused,” “I don’t know,” or “I’m not sure how to do this” and then be willing figure it out together. And it isn’t just teachers who need to be vulnerable and willing to “not know”; our administrators need to model this as well.
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READ PRINCIPLES TO ACTIONS:

Ensuring Mathematical Success for All by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
NCTM has undertaken a major initiative to define and describe the principles and actions, including specific teaching practices, essential for a high-quality mathematics education for all students. Reading this will help hone one’s math instruction.
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​FORM A MATH COMMUNITY IN YOUR BUILDING

Find teachers like yourself who want to get smarter. Plan together. Solve problems together. Discuss data together. Discuss next steps together. Find “High Quality Math Tasks” and solve them with your learning community. Create a math vertical team. In my building, we have a math team with representation from each grade level. We find “HQMTs” and solve and discuss them together. We take time to look at the progression of standards together.
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JOIN A BIGGER MATH COMMUNITY

With technology, math content knowledge is at our fingertips. There are many resources available to us. Find someone who inspires you on social media and follow them. I follow Christina Tondevold on Twitter or Facebook. She holds webinars, has a math blog and offers a plethora of resources. She also facilitates a math community called “Build Math Minds.” (This last one requires a fee to join and she only opens up her window twice a year).
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DO LEARNING WALKS

Three years ago, my district embraced “learning walks” for math content. These walks involve teachers only and no administrators are allowed in or are reported to. Teachers go into each other’s classrooms to mindfully watch students in order to learn/discover new math curriculum/ways of teaching. There are four components to a learning walk:

• A focus question

• Classroom visits

• Structured analysis

• Next Steps Planning

These walks afford teachers the opportunity to explore new math content without
fear of being judged or evaluated.
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GIVE HONEST FEEDBACK

Administrators, this is where we need your help. Create a math rubric and evaluate teachers honestly. Evaluate them according to the risks they have taken and their desire to learn and grow as teachers.
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HIRE A GREAT MATH CONSULTANT

A great math consultant is invaluable to a district. Making an investment to improve teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogy will have immeasurable benefits for our students.
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Let’s face it, colleges and universities are not preparing teachers to teach math. They have great preparatory ELA (Reading and Writing) classes but math content often takes a back seat or gets no seat at all. Let’s all embrace the growth mindset we ask of our students and create teachers who fall unabashedly in love with math and can call themselves “math thinkers.”

I look forward to my new math journey every day. Will you come along?