Normalized Exclusion

I was talking with a friend of mine who is an elementary teacher from southern Saskatchewan. One of her favourite things to do is put together and organize fun, celebratory days focused around holidays and birthdays.  When I think about my own time in school, I have to admit that I also consider those class parties some of the best memories I have as a child. But as she went on I started to feel a little bit sad.  She shared how she had a couple of students in her class that had to remove themselves from each celebration because their religions forbade them taking part.

To be clear, I wasn't sad because I thought it was unfair that the students had to sit out in the hall or miss an entire day of school because of an unfair set of religious guidelines and expectations.  Quite the opposite-I was sad because of how normal my friend thought the whole situation was.  What ensued was a lengthy conversation about why she decided to go through with it all in the end even though some students could not be included.  

I was surprised to find she didn't really bat an eye at the fact that these students were being excluded.  Actually she didn't even really consider looking at the situation in that way at all. One of the first statements she made was that she figured the rest of her students shouldn't miss out because only a couple of them weren't allowed to take part. 

I have to admit I don't understand that argument. I always thought that a big part of teaching was focusing on those pieces of the world that were not represented in the dominant culture. But when we selectively exclude students based in any number of things, including religion, we are not only reinforcing the dominant culture, but we are telling our students that some voices are more important than others; that some ways of life are "normal" and "acceptable" and some are not. 

How can we teach empathy when we deliberately exclude? How can we teach compassion or equity, or kindness when we establish hierarchies in the classroom? 

These are hard questions and require a lot of self-reflection, and can even cause feelings of anger, frustration and resentment. I feel like some days I do a pretty bang up job when it comes to inclusion. Most days I have that nagging feeling that I am just not doing enough.  Plus I always find it harder to reflect on what I'm not including and WHY I'm not including it, than reflecting on what I've included and ways I can improve. 

At the end of our conversation, we politely agreed to disagree, and moved on to talking about when we would catch up the next time she was home for a visit.  Even though we've been friends for years, I can't help feel like the conversation has changed our relationship in a very profound way.  I never meant to make her feel bad or like she had to defend herself to me, but I definitely wanted to shed a different light on the situaion. I hoped she could understand a different point of view, if not agree with it.   

SUM2015: Taking Time to Learn

This weekend I attended the SUM Conference in Saskatoon, focusing all of my attention on ways to become a better math teacher.  As a student in elementary and high school, I would have been considered an average math student.  I wasn't blowing anybody's mind with my mathematical genius, but I wasn't giving my teachers any headaches because I didn't know what I was doing.  Average.   
Turns out, the joke is on all my past math teachers.  I didn't know what I was doing.  I had no number sense.  I didn't understand place value.  I had no skills in applying math.  I don't even want to talk about word problems and solving for x.  Truth be told, as an adult, I have a limited (one might say basic) understanding of math. 
When I was told about the conference, I was initially very excited to go.  But after a few days to think about it, I became really nervous about it.  I began to think about the situation I was potentially walking in to.  I decided that I was probably going to be in a room, filled with people who, more than likely, were enthusiastic about math, considered themselves "good" at math, and who had mostly positive personal experiences in math.  This is not me.  Sure I memorized the formula, rules or steps to get the job done, but it was hard for me.  I remember pre-reinforcing my paper to protect those ever-important notes that contained every step I needed to complete questions that would fill my entire page.  I almost always had to turn around in my desk to ask a friend for help; a sure sign that I was wasting time, therefore not putting in enough effort, subsequently loosing precious marks that would have otherwise boosted my final grade.  On the rare occasion I did muster up the courage to get up and walk over to my teacher who was sitting at his desk watching us and listening to the sound of pencils scratching over paper, the events looked something like this:  He would stretch out his hand to take my paper, but never look at me.  His eyes focused on the class in front of him.  He never asked what my question was.  He found the question I was having trouble with, crossed out my work, and did the question for me, nary an explanation in sight.  Then he stretched out his arm again, without looking at me, and gave my paper back to me. 
All of these (and other) experiences came pouring over me and I began to develop anxiety about it.  I didn't want to be the only person in the room who didn't get math.  I didn't want to be the only person in the room having to work hard.  I didn't want to be the only person in the room who couldn't share, didn't have the right answer or had nothing to offer.  And when I was done going through all the possible horrible scenarios I could think of, I gave my head a shake and went anyway.
I am so glad I did.  I was still massively out of my comfort zone, but I couldn't believe all I was learning about math, how I understood it, and how to teach it to my students, or rather, how to have my students teach it to me.
I took away a general message of "Play, talk, stay out of the way!".  Play is an essential part of student learning.  While this message is not unfamiliar to me, I think it's safe to say that, in general, we teach the "play" out of students.  Over the course of the weekend I have learned that I teach the play out of my students when I show them that there is only one way to solve an equation, and then step in every time they require assistance.  I also do this when I don't validate their ideas, and even when I give them praise.  I do this, still, when I simply don't give them time to play. 
In all fairness, I don't exactly know what math play looks like.  I don't remember playing in math myself as a student, so I don't even have anything to lean on so I can "fake it 'til I make it".  I think that it looks like me giving students a problem, then allowing them to access a variety of learning tools to help them show their understanding , and giving them time to solve that problem in multiply ways.  That's what it's going to look like for our class right now, anyway.  (Suggestions welcome!)
As they play, they have to have a chance to talk.  This is vital.  It's vital because in doing this, they justify their thinking to one another, and to me.  They learn what respectful listening is, and how to respectfully respond to an idea.  They learn patience, how to ask questions, how to trust their own thinking, and how to deal with mistakes. 
Writing it this way seems a little rosy, I know.  The truth is that students will need many opportunities to practice these skills, and infinitely more reminders about the expectations, but I know from past experiences with students that they can do it!  It's not fair of us to assume our students know how to do these things when they come to us.  Neither is it fair for us to show them once, and expect they "get it".   What is fair is laying out very specific guidelines for expectations, and giving students chances to show us they can do what is expected.  Fair is also being patient as they learn, and being even more patient when they forget themselves.
The importance of "talking" was driven home by Dr. Ruth Parker, who shared her invaluable knowledge of Number Talks.  She modeled for us the teacher role, and we were her students, engaging in discussion and sharing our thinking and understanding of the problems put before us.  What I found most interesting is that, in general, we (the adults) had very complex ways of solving problems.  Once we shared our thinking, she would say, "Want to see what my 5th graders did?".  And without fail, every time, they showed a deep(er) understanding of math, and solved the problem more practically and in less steps than us.  It.  Was.  Awesome. 
I quickly understood the value of number talks, and realized that I am doing them (to a small degree) by accident in my classroom.  I'm also doing them incorrectly.  The biggest mistake that I'm making is that I'm acknowledging the students thinking, instead of simply recording it.  While I mean to praise students as a way to encourage them, I'm ultimately having the opposite effect.  I'm creating an environment that is unsafe for students who might be timid to share, lest their idea not be worthy of "oh, interesting!", "did you notice what she did?!" or "great idea!".  I am not encouraging independent thinking with those comments either.  I'm encouraging everyone to think like the students I'm praising.  I'm certainly not helping students discover intrinsic motivation.  I guess the silver lining in all this is that I realize what I am doing.  And when I know better, I do better. 
Learning to "stay out of the way" is another vital piece to student learning.  During her presentation, Dr. Parker emphasized the importance of letting the students take the reigns when using number talks.  This is student time.  It's a time for them to share their own thinking-correct or not.  It's not a time for me as a teacher, to interject, make suggestions, point out mistakes, or even use a "teachable moment".  There is a time and a place for all those things, but number talks are very strictly opportunities for students to talk.
As she modeled the role of the teacher for us, she would record our thinking, never once assuming that she knew what we were saying.  We were always asked to explain what we did, how we grouped images, and ultimately, how we added or subtracted numbers.  For me, this is a vital piece, because, in assuming I know what a student is thinking/saying, I might be leading them away from their true thought, and stifling their math creativity. 
The conference is over and I am mentally exhausted and completely satisfied, committed to making changes to my teaching and our daily math routines immediately.  I'm so excited to go to work on Monday and have our first number talk, and I look forward to playing in our classroom-even though I don't know what that means exactly, and expect that will be my next uncomfortably steep learning curve.  The good news about uncomfortable learning is that your brain literally grows as you make mistakes.  I have to remember to share that with my students...