Do You Think of Yourself as a Mathematician?

Do You Think of Yourself as a Mathematician?

#52Books2017 #WeeklyBlogChallenge17 Twitter is full of conversations about teachers as readers and writers. I, among many others, have been swept into reading more than I have in quite some time and am loving it. I believe this enthusiasm comes from a simple shared goal, we want children to become readers and writers. This is easy to get excited about because we are excited about discovering or rediscovering these things in ourselves.

Most adults don’t think of themselves as mathematicians and I don’t think teachers are an exception. This means that the shared journey teachers and their classes experience exploring their natures as readers or writers often isn’t there for maths. There is lots of fantastic maths teaching: multiple representations, deep investigation, solving of open problems. These are the attributes of a mathematician but often they are used as interesting and effective ways of teaching content rather than shown the central point of mathematics. This comes back to the idea of a shared journey, maths is often seen as a linear progression, a path of steps to be followed. This leads to perceptions of teachers and children at different points on a journey and loses some of that connection that teaching a love of reading gives. I want to encourage teachers to step off the path and discover what gives them and their class a shared joy in maths.

Here are some ideas:

History of Maths – Sharing a discovery that Indian mathematicians used to do maths in verse or that Sophie Germain taught herself mathematics in secret while the French Revolution was in full flow outside her family’s house gives a feeling of mathematics as living, evolving and personal, a creative human art.

Get Lost in the Woods - Set the class a problem to solve that you don’t know an answer to. Explore it with them to gain that sense of shared journey.

Low Floor, High Ceiling – Set problems that allow you to stretch them in many different ways. This openness can again have the same feeling of shared discovery.

Communicate – One of the joys of reading is finding out what other people thought of a book you liked. Try to build enthusiasm for communicating mathematical ideas with others, allowing children and adults to put their personal imprint on a problem.

Wonderful Mathematical Books – The same way reading does it, beautiful books!

Do maths when children aren't there - Solve problems, prove your statements, spot patterns, draw your ideas, read about maths and talk about maths. 

These ideas are meant to be neither exhaustive nor authoritative, simply possible pathways to wider teacher enthusiasm for maths as opposed to maths teaching. If teachers are not readers can they encourage a joy of reading in children, if they do not write can they encourage a joy of writing and if they are not mathematicians can they encourage a joy of mathematics. 

Are you a mathematician?