Math Education: Joy In Learning Mathematics Is No Longer Important
I just came back from the best conference of my life. It wasn’t a math one. It was a Mental Health Summit in beautiful Banff, Alberta.
The fact that I got to speak with my daughter about mental health and mathematics was truly amazing, but that isn’t what made it the best.
It was the best because for the first time attending conferences, EVERY conversation I had about education was honest, vulnerable, and devoid of ego — something that is quite symbolic in the edu-celebrity culture that math education has yielded to over the last few years.
It was the best because the most important issue in education — mental health/wellness for students, teachers, and administrators — was discussed with uncompromising depth and sincerity. It was a safe place where speakers and attendees could be emotional and unguarded with their feelings.
One of the many sessions that caught my eye in terms of the work I do was a keynote by Jessica Janzen.
The Blueprint For Resiliency: How Joy Fuels Resiliency For Forward Momentum
Read that in the context of mathematics education. Read that with the most honest audit you can do of where “joy” sits in mathematics education. If you are honest, you should say that joy — if it is to be found — is only given lip service. You know, much like those mental health posters in schools that pretend mental health is a priority, but action — action meaningful to the students needing support — is nowhere to be found.
Joy left the building in mathematics education prior to the pandemic. At which point, mathematics — globally unfortunately — became a servant/tool for the educators who were drunk on pedagogy, performance, and teacher-facing drivel on the most sterilized aspects of mathematics.
Mathematics now smells like a surgical room in a hospital. The best — or worst — example of math educators being divorced from the reality of the importance of joy/mental health must be the position paper by my birth country. The first word was “pedagogy”. The article right there could have been titled — “How we hate children and mathematics”.
Too extreme? Nope. Pedagogy has demoted actual mathematical content to the sidelines. How we teach has become ridiculously more important than what we teach. The whiteboard, and the 10 foot stroll towards it has become academic gold, with what’s on it referred to “tasks”. Look up that word. If you can extract a thimble of anything joyful from that, you should work for NASA.
Even NCTM, which used to be the trailblazer in rich mathematical content, has fallen to the Australian depths of joyless mathematics.
Pretty sure if you survey students, not one of them knows what “pedagogy” means.
“Creative Pedagogy” sounds amazing except it doesn’t. That’s because it demonstrates — in the most transparent fashion — that mathematical content is either unimportant or doesn’t need discussion. At least it wasn’t titled “Joyful Pedagogy”. That would have been a bridge too far — for everyone.
One of the slides in my keynote with my daughter Raya was this one.
Do you know what the first thing Raya said when I showed her this picture and wanting to use it in our presentation?
“Aww…look at me smiling”
Raya excels at mathematics in high school, but she doesn’t smile while doing it. So, imagine kids who are not excelling. Imagine their emotional state with mathematics.
High test scores, as my daughter illustrated, won’t fix that.
And, the cruel reality is that mathematics education doesn’t care. It’s all some inert stew of “hot take” discussions on AI/ed tech/science of ______/evidence-based teaching.
It’s all for adults. Its all for edu-celebrities. It’s all for the pushers of one ed tech solution after another.
Mathematics education is no longer for students. And, it certainly is no longer for students who are starving for joy in their lives through the world of mathematics.
In education, that world is parched. And, it’s not coming back for a long, long, long time…
