When I was in undergrad, the highest math class I took was the required Statistics course. I remember telling my professor that I didn't like math and I wasn't any good at it. When I began teaching 9 years ago, math was one of my least favorite subjects to teach. Students couldn't remember the algorithms, they couldn't solve word problems, and they couldn't memorize math facts. I spent years convinced that I just couldn't teach these kids math. Then, just a few years ago, I attended a virtual math summit and my ideas about math and math education began to change. I learned that teaching math shouldn't be just teaching algorithms, and things in my classroom began to transform. 

In 2022, I was in the midst of my math-class transformation (or so I thought) when I opened my school email to see that DESE (Missouri's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) was offering to fully fund an Elementary Math Specialist Certificate program and I jumped on it. I had no idea what an EMS was or what they did or what they could do, but I wanted to up my game in math. I only thought my math class had been transformed. The EMS program has truly changed the way I approach math with my students. No longer do I teach mnemonics to remember an algorithm. No longer do I give up on word problems because "they're too hard." No longer do my students sit quietly at their desks to complete their workbooks. No. Now my classroom is full of math discussions, students are problem solving and making sense of the math, and they are growing so much more than I dreamed possible.

One of the biggest take-aways from the EMS program was how important mathematical discourse is to student learning. Through discourse, students regularly make sense of problems and persevere in solving them and construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others, two of Common Core State Standards' Mathematical Practices (2010). When I dove into the research, I saw article after article about how beneficial mathematical discourse was. In my own classroom, I've seen students authentically engaged in math, and I have seen incredible growth in students' math achievement. But I wanted to know: how did the students feel about mathematical discourse? Do the students see the benefits, too? I decided to ask my class of 5th graders their thoughts about mathematical discourse and whether or not they found it a worthwhile endeavor.