MTC4SJ Educator Spotlight

When John became a teacher, he began to think about all his students and realized that some students’ needs were not being met. He wanted to make sure that The Morgan School education that he got when he was younger is the same education that everyone is getting today. This inspired him to enter the world of social justice math because he values his own education and wanted to ensure that he contributed that same foundation for his students. He was also inspired to enter the world of social justice math when he was in the military and saw individuals not having access to education or basic social needs.

Since that moment of entering into the social justice math world, he continued to be inspired when he saw his students’ thinking or perspectives change or towards something they discussed or debated. He also continues to be dedicated to the work because of the other people consistently inspiring him. He was motivated by the MTC4SJ Summer Stars Program where he got to meet wonderful mathematics educators and collaborated with Brian McDermott on a lesson called “Hungry for Change - Food Deserts in CT”. He also says regularly working with his colleagues around social justice math inspires him to keep going. At The Morgan School, they have a Social Justice Day that builds awareness across the community that this work is important to the school and incorporates a group activity to get everyone involved. 

A positive impact that John has seen is the creation of a social justice club. He also partnered with other classes, including journalism and data science, that helped explore the themes he discusses in class. The rich collaboration incorporates different perspectives into a topic to create a valuable discussion. He also says that there are more themes related to the topics that he discusses in math that are implemented in the curriculum as electives. One class is the African American/Black and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies course that is quite popular at The Morgan School. Originally, its creation was mandated by the state; however, rather than just checking a box, the school took it seriously to provide the proper information necessary for this class.

For him, partnerships are a very good sign of progress and so seeing the development of this new class and the collaboration between classes helps him know he is on the right track toward positive change. John states that teachers leading programs is good, but once students start taking the initiative to lead these programs, then that is when success really starts to happen. 

One challenge is time because he wants to make sure that the lessons are put together properly and he always asks himself: “How do I operationalize this for my classroom?” However, he finds that over time these resources will start to build and that if an individual is patient and dedicated to this work, then they will soon have a library of materials that they can keep revisiting.

The second challenge or fear that he encounters is not wanting to disservice a topic that he is teaching. These topics are so important and he wants to make sure that he treats the topic well and discovers the theories behind them. He was grateful to have been a part of a planning session where they discussed the orientation, framework, and philosophical approaches involved in the lessons. In addition to these ideas, there was also discussion about how to implement what people are doing now with the topic at hand and what questions the lesson should answer or address. He says that although it can be challenging to make sure he is up to speed on everything that he discusses, he ensures that he takes the time to read about them. He also says it is a little easier now than when he originally started because he has a library of journals he can easily access. 

Here are some resources (in addition to MTC4SJ) that John suggests for incorporating social justice into the classroom:

• Storytelling for Social Justice: Connecting Narrative and the Arts in Antiracist Teaching, by Lee Anne Bell (2019)

"I absolutely love this book. It inspired me to find my own voice in developing lesson plans for mathematics and social justice."

• Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice 4th Edition, by Adams, Bell, Goodman, Shlasko, Briggs, and Pacheco (2023)

"I find this book to be a constant resource for me. I refer to it often to review theories of teaching and social justice."

• High School Mathematics Lessons to Explore, Understand, and Respond to Social Injustice, by Berry, Conway, Lawler, and Staley (2020)

It is a great resource for lessons in MANY areas of high school math. In addition, I use this book frequently when thinking about developing a new line of lessons."

• Reading And Writing The World With Mathematics: Toward a Pedagogy for Social Justice, by Rico Gutstein (2005)

• Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching social justice by the numbers, by Gutstein and Peterson (2013)

"These two books really jumpstarted my ability to plan lessons. I am a big fan of Gutstein's work. It inspired me to be a good questioner in the development of my own lessons and activities."

Lastly, if John could pick any shape to compare himself to, what would it be?

John would pick a circle because there are so many interesting things about them. He loves that you can go infinitely around them and that there is a sense of timelessness surrounding the shape that is really great. He also has had several great conversations with students about circles. One student continuously brings up a mind-blowing moment where John showed him how when you create an infinite-sided polygon by increasing the number of sides, then it increasingly approximates to become a circle. To this day, the student will bring up the circle.

Sacha has always been a social justice math teacher, first drawing from her background as a student of color and then experiencing the under-representation of Black teachers in the public school system, particularly in the STEM field. She had phenomenal teachers of color which inspired her to give herself back to students. She has been able to see both sides of the public education system as a student and an educator and she sees the importance of being able to draw from her racial, cultural background in the classroom. Incorporating social justice issues into the classroom came natural to her because the societal topics that are connected to her students’ lives are on her mind as well. 

By incorporating social justice into her classroom, she has seen students reflect on their abilities in the math classroom and realize that they are stronger than they initially thought. This realization also extends into their academic achievement overall. She has seen her students become more likely to continue education after high school and hopefully into the STEM field after being exposed to social justice in math class. For students, this exposure is very important because the content allows them to see themselves as change agents in society. She has seen students realize that by learning the mathematics behind these civic issues is actually a part of creating the change that needs to happen. They realize that they can utilize math in a way that can directly impact their lives. 

One of the biggest challenges that she has faced is working within the restraints of content and curriculum. There are certain ideas and topics that need to be taught and touched upon in a high school math classroom. However, it has been designed in a way where people of color are not often recognized, nor are their accomplishments or achievements celebrated. However, Sacha continues to increase representation in her classroom by displaying math from different countries and celebrating important people of color.

Another challenge that she has encountered is holding schools accountable for ensuring that social justice is incorporated throughout the district if this is something that they are working towards. It cannot only be two to three teachers incorporating social justice into their classroom, it has to be a collective effort.

Here are some online resources (in addition to Math Teachers’ Circle for Social Justice) that Sacha suggests for incorporating social justice into the classroom:

• Skew the Script: “Make Math What it Already is: Relevant”

• Learning for Justice (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance)

• RadicalMath (Jonathan Osler): “empowers educators to address issues of social and racial justice in math classrooms through curriculum, lesson planning resources, and professional development opportunities”

The Benjamin Banneker Association, Inc. “is a national non-profit organization and partner affiliate with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), dedicated to mathematics education advocacy, establishing a presence for leadership, and professional development to support teachers in leveling the playing field for mathematics learning of the highest quality for African-American students.”

Lastly, if Sacha could pick any shape to compare herself to, what would it be?

Sacha would be a circle! She started as a student in a classroom and had amazing teachers throughout her educational experiences that inspired her to become a teacher. Now that she is a teacher, she has the ability to encourage her students to become teachers and enter the STEM field as her teachers did for her. It’s a full circle!

When Lindsay came to the realization of her own privilege, she realized that she does not live in a state of urgency or fear, but there are many students that do. She says, “I need to hold myself accountable to contributing to making things better” in the field of education. Education has the power to broaden people’s awareness and she wants to be someone who is contributing to this change.

Lindsay looks at the curriculum as a mirror or a window to different students in the classroom. When the curriculum is a mirror for students, it is reflective of their lives which helps students understand the world. The curriculum is considered a window for students from marginalized backgrounds that only have access to material related to other students and representative of the dominant society. Lindsay wants the curriculum to be a mirror for all students in the classroom so that the material they are learning is relevant and students are able to make connections from the content to their own lives. 

Lindsay hopes that the pre-service teachers are gaining awareness of the ways the curriculum does/doesn’t reflect individual students, and are considering ways of incorporating culturally sustaining pedagogy in the classrooms after taking her classes. She wants them to realize that math holds so much potential for them and they are able to utilize math to fight for injustices that they care about. She continues to encourage students to critique the context of the material and figure out how they are wielding their power in the classroom. 

In her Algebra and Data class for elementary teachers, she has future teachers investigate an issue that they themselves care about - and use the mathematics learned in the course to argue for an unfairness or injustice they see around them in the university, community, or world. This has been a powerful experience to learn about issues in the local or broader community that fellow classmates care about, and to see how they use math to bring to light inequities. 

One of her STEAM teachers adapted a traditional “build your dream house” project, to focus on the issue of homelessness and poverty. Her revised project had children design tiny houses that could be used as homeless shelters. Instead of simply designing a house, the lesson also taught students about homelessness.

One challenge that Lindsay has faced through her work is what “culturally responsive” means. This term can mean many different things to different people. There is a big spectrum of different ways to be culturally responsive in the classroom. Sometimes, the curriculum is meaningful and sometimes it is not. She utilized the theoretical framework from Gloria Ladson-Billings (See Resources) about culturally responsive pedagogy. As she works with students, she also noticed that students latch onto something that they already know a great deal about, rather than investigating a new topic that would address a marginalized community. She encourages students to create a lesson about something that they have just started to learn about so that the learning experience enriches both the teacher and students.

Here are a few books that Lindsay offers as resources:

For culturally responsive pedagogy theory, Lindsay recommends the book, “The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children” by Gloria Ladson-Billings. She also recommends the book, “Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers by Eric (Rico) Gutstein and Bob Peterson. This book is full of math tasks oriented around social justice and offers guidance for developing problems that are relevant to different cultures and communities. 

Lastly, if Lindsay could be any angle in a triangle, how many degrees would she have?

“I think I’m too much of a right angle in my day to day, so probably that!”

Before teaching in Hartford, Angela worked in a relatively wealthy school system where students were exposed to iPads and a curriculum rich with the benefits of an upper-class education that provides room for student-led exploration and creativity. When she came to Hartford, she was faced with the harsh reality that many inner-city and working class students are not granted those same opportunities, and that despite a curriculum that was aligned to CCSS and containing high-quality tasks many students were not provided access to the content and learning experiences. She felt both upset and inspired by this stark difference, and said that it pushed her to flex her creative muscles with a goal of engaging and inspiring Hartford students.

Angela challenges herself and her students to continually circle back to the question:
“What is this teaching you, and how are you going to take that information and use it for good?”

Her efforts to help students use mathematics to examine social justice issues have had significant success thus far.

At Hartford High, students who participated in the Project-Based Learning Pathway took a pre- and post-district assessment that was created based on several Connecticut colleges’ placement exam content.  Results showed that the students who participated in the program showed a 43% increase (yes, you read that correctly!) between their pre- and post-exams. In contrast, their Tier 1 peers who did not participate in the programming had a 8-10% increase between the same two exams. 

Angela has also noticed that students seem more eager to participate in math conversations than ever before.

The work has come with its fair share of challenges, as well. Angela has found that particularly in working class schools like many of those in the Hartford Public School district, the math curriculum tends to be rigidly centered around state standards. While standards-oriented lessons are indeed necessary, she’s found that this rigidity can lead to the teachers that are trying to implement her programming being met with pushback from school leadership. 

Angela also highlighted the lack of existing resources as a significant and continuous struggle when creating social justice-oriented math lessons. 

“Sometimes you go down a path trying to formulate a project, you have really good ideas about a topic, but the resources are just not there,” she said. Because the wider math community has still not entrenched itself in the idea of using math to address social injustice, it’s often difficult for those looking to start their journey teaching in this way to find resources on how to do so. 

She added that the projects and lessons are more meaningful when there is real, raw, local data about the social issue being examined through math. If discussing racial profiling, for example, it is more meaningful when she can find authentic data about Hartford police stops and the demographics of who they’re stopping than if she merely creates an artificial dataset. However, these authentic datasets can be difficult to find.

Angela knows how difficult it can be to find resources when creating math curriculum and lessons analyzing social injustices, so she offered up a few resources for those interested in the work. 

She graciously shared a teacher-facing overview of one of the 6-week units in her Project-Based Learning Pathway. Check out a framework for addressing this relevant topic to young Hartford learners: “Exploring the Underground: The History of Street Art in Hartford”

She also urged teachers to utilize a book that has been of immense help to her along her social justice math journey: High School Mathematics Lessons to Explore, Understand, and Respond to Social Injustice, by Robert Q. Berry, Basil Conway, Brian Lawler, and John Staley. The book lays the foundations for understanding what social justice math is, how to approach it while being mindful of one’s own positionality, and provides sample lessons.

As an individual who in many ways has served as a social justice math trailblazer in her sphere of influence, Angela has a great deal of insight and personal experience to offer other educational professionals involved in this line of work. In her advice to others, she emphasizes that the social justice related issues being analyzed through math lessons must suit the specific needs of the particular community a teacher is engaging with. This means that, although it entails more work and can often be time consuming, these lessons are not ones that will fall into a teacher’s lap ready-made. They need to be thoughtfully crafted for a teacher’s unique community.

She also urges teachers and other educational professionals to understand that they will not enter this work lightly, and that they will inevitably be met with pushback at some point. However, she is enthusiastic about articulating that, despite those bumps along the road, there truly is a community of like minded educators out there. 

To those beginning to engage in the process of using math to analyze and address social injustices, Angela says, “Engage, push yourself, and question your own beliefs!”

Most of all, she reminds her fellow educational professionals to remember just how important this work is: "Standards are important too, but our kids live in a world where they need to be critical thinkers”, and that includes knowing how to systematically study the social issues that they see reflected in their world everyday.

LASTLY. If Angela could be ANY angle in a triangle, how many degrees would she have??

Her answer? Drumroll……

“I wanna be 90 degrees, but I feel like that’s presumptuous!”