00:00:00:00 - 00:00:07:21
Unknown
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Tina Arena. Today I have on my friend Pam and she is here to share her story with us today.

00:00:07:21 - 00:00:10:17
Unknown
Thanks, Tina. I'm so excited to be here and to share my story.

00:00:10:17 - 00:00:14:04
Unknown
my story begins when I was teaching

00:00:14:04 - 00:00:18:11
Unknown
eighth grade math. I am going to start the story

00:00:18:11 - 00:00:20:23
Unknown
by saying my students tried to have me fired.

00:00:20:25 - 00:00:24:05
Unknown
I had been teaching for a number of years before I started teaching

00:00:24:05 - 00:00:33:07
Unknown
at this particular job, and I was taught middle school math. And I thought, you know, how hard could it be to teach eighth graders in a new school? That I was brand new to

00:00:33:07 - 00:00:37:15
Unknown
I had prepared all summer long to prepare for these students to come?

00:00:37:15 - 00:00:49:15
Unknown
was hearing from my colleagues and the students had out word like, quote unquote, worst students to ever come to the school district, and that it was my job to just get through the get them through the year. And I thought, okay, no problem. That's easy. And on the first day of school,

00:00:49:15 - 00:00:55:11
Unknown
I stood there at my door, my classroom door, waiting for the students to come in at the beginning of the day.

00:00:55:13 - 00:00:57:21
Unknown
And I could hear the thundering of

00:00:57:21 - 00:00:58:21
Unknown

00:00:58:21 - 00:01:03:12
Unknown
eighth grade humans coming up the up the third to the third floor where my classroom was.

00:01:03:12 - 00:01:16:02
Unknown
And I started to get this feeling of fear in me, thinking, all right, well, I had taught middle school, but I hadn't taught eighth grade yet. And I started having this these doubts of am I up for this job?

00:01:16:04 - 00:01:23:18
Unknown
As the students came into my classroom, I had a hard time making eye contact with any of the students because they were just they were not interested in.

00:01:23:18 - 00:01:30:12
Unknown
Making a relationship with me, I had to remind myself, these are eighth graders. So they're sort of like, you know, they're ready for high school. Even on the first day of school.

00:01:30:14 - 00:01:49:16
Unknown
As we started the school year, the school district had given me a stack of shiny red textbooks, brand new shiny red textbooks, and in these textbooks were pages. And pages of problems are very traditional textbooks like you open the book and on the left hand side of the page, there's maybe some practice exercises. And on the right hand side of the page there is,

00:01:49:16 - 00:01:54:05
Unknown
you know, 40, 40 or so problems with a couple of word problems kind of sprinkled at the bottom of the page.

00:01:54:07 - 00:02:13:12
Unknown
And so I hand out the textbooks for the first couple of weeks of school. I'm trying to teach the students out of these textbooks. And what I'm starting to realize is that the students are not interested in anything. I mean, it's like, you know, some students don't love to go to math class with these students who really did not see themselves as math people.

00:02:13:14 - 00:02:34:03
Unknown
At the same time, I was taking a class in graduate school and the title of the class was Intro to Math Education, which is kind of funny because at this point I already had eight years of teaching math, only math under my belt, and the professor would always bring these really interesting, rich problems to the classroom, things that were very creative, and to get students thinking about math.

00:02:34:05 - 00:02:45:01
Unknown
But they also required some sort of group work when you're doing these types of problems. And I'm sitting there in class thinking there is no way that I'm going to get these students to engage in these problems because

00:02:45:01 - 00:02:51:26
Unknown
I could already feel that they were behind in their in their, mathematical understanding. They were just checked out.

00:02:51:26 - 00:03:06:22
Unknown
The discipline problems were off the charts, and I was actually getting ready to resign. I had looked I looked up the other school to school districts that had given me opportunities. I had offered me jobs, and I called them back and asked if they would still had those jobs available.

00:03:06:22 - 00:03:13:05
Unknown
That didn't work out. And so I pulled my professor aside at the end of class one night and I said,

00:03:13:05 - 00:03:15:04
Unknown
I see all these problems that you're bringing.

00:03:15:04 - 00:03:18:14
Unknown
I hear all of my peers in class saying,

00:03:18:16 - 00:03:25:18
Unknown
you know, all my students did this and my students did that. So I'm hearing that these problems are actually working in classrooms in the state where I live.

00:03:25:18 - 00:03:35:04
Unknown
Yet I did not believe that my students were able to do the problems. And so she said she asked me a question that was kind of I charted the path for the rest of my career.

00:03:35:06 - 00:03:39:03
Unknown
And the question was, if you don't believe in them, who will?

00:03:39:03 - 00:03:53:14
Unknown
So I went back to my back back home at about a 45 minute drive home that night. And I and this is after a full day of teaching and I was just quiet in the car. I didn't listen to radio. There was no such thing as podcasting at that time.

00:03:53:16 - 00:03:57:03
Unknown
I just sat with my thoughts and I said, okay, what's your next move?

00:03:57:03 - 00:04:02:09
Unknown
So the next day I came to class and I collected all the textbooks and I said, we're done with these.

00:04:02:09 - 00:04:17:11
Unknown
I started taking some of those, those creative tasks that my professor had given us and bring them into the classroom. And slowly but surely, students started to kind of come around. But I started the story with my students, tried to get me fired,

00:04:17:11 - 00:04:24:08
Unknown
and one day I came down to the main office to get my mail at lunchtime, and I could see all my students packed into the main office

00:04:24:08 - 00:04:25:04
Unknown
and

00:04:25:04 - 00:04:27:23
Unknown
I came in and the principal said, oh, perfect timing.

00:04:27:25 - 00:04:49:05
Unknown
This is this is Brett is here now. So I asked the students what was going on, thinking like, you know, are they planning a party? No, no, they're planning a coup. They were ready to, they are telling me, telling the principal that I didn't know how to do the math, that I should be fired. And the reason why they said that is because I didn't ever give them the answers.

00:04:49:07 - 00:04:58:06
Unknown
I didn't tell them how to do the math. I would always ask them questions. So like if they said the answer is three fourths, I would say, why? Or how do you know?

00:04:58:06 - 00:05:02:14
Unknown
So they interpret that, interpreted that teaching move as

00:05:02:14 - 00:05:08:21
Unknown
the teacher doesn't know what she's doing because they never been asked to speak before. They'd never been asked before the eighth grade.

00:05:08:21 - 00:05:22:05
Unknown
They'd always been just told, this is how you do the math. Copy it down, write it, do it, spit it back. And I don't teach that way. So they were getting a used to a whole new paradigm shift and a perspective shift of what it really means to do math.

00:05:22:05 - 00:05:25:25
Unknown
So long story short, slowly but surely they started to come around.

00:05:25:28 - 00:05:40:15
Unknown
The principal supported me. The administration was amazing. They told me, you know, to keep doing what I was doing, and they really kind of looked the other way that I had to take in the textbooks that they had just spent tens of thousands of dollars on, and put them on the shelf. They turned the other way.

00:05:40:15 - 00:05:42:21
Unknown
And yeah, the rest is history.

00:05:42:21 - 00:05:46:25
Unknown
that's my story. About what? How it changed the direction of my career.

00:05:47:27 - 00:05:49:06
Unknown
Did your students

00:05:49:06 - 00:05:54:01
Unknown
like math after that? That is a great question. Do they like math?

00:05:54:01 - 00:05:58:07
Unknown
I think they saw math differently. So,

00:05:58:07 - 00:06:10:29
Unknown
yeah, I think some of them did like math. And I can tell you and one particular student who in the beginning of the school year, oh, she was really difficult to understand. I couldn't understand how to get through to her.

00:06:10:29 - 00:06:25:00
Unknown
I'll just call her T. That was her, and I won't say her name, but I couldn't get her to pick up her head up off the desk. She always brought a suitcase to class. I still to this day, have no idea what was in that suitcase. I asked the school nurse, is this child's speak like, maybe there's some type of

00:06:25:00 - 00:06:26:10
Unknown
issue with her language?

00:06:26:12 - 00:06:45:10
Unknown
No, there was no medical issues. There was no IEP, which we called the United States like an individual, education plan. She just really didn't want to talk to me or this same student in June came back at the end of the year, and she asked me to give her polynomials to simplify on the board to stay after school.

00:06:45:10 - 00:06:49:04
Unknown
Now, we had a nice air conditioned school. The student might have been going home to a very

00:06:49:04 - 00:07:00:05
Unknown
not so nice situation at home, I don't know, but she wasn't just sitting in my classroom after school. There's this waste time. She was actually asking to do more math. So to answer your question, do they start to like math? I think some of them really did.

00:07:00:07 - 00:07:03:18
Unknown
That's an incredible impact to have on kids when

00:07:03:18 - 00:07:06:11
Unknown
they're in such their formative years. I remember

00:07:06:11 - 00:07:11:03
Unknown
it is really the attitude of the teacher that has an impact on you and kind of helps

00:07:11:03 - 00:07:29:29
Unknown
determine the courses that you like, right? Yeah. And really like and I look at the whole, like, if you use a math word, the whole equation, it really was as of sitting here talking to you now, I'm having this epiphany that it really was like divine intervention that that professor,

00:07:29:29 - 00:07:32:28
Unknown
that I had taken that class, I could have taken lots of different classes.

00:07:32:28 - 00:07:39:22
Unknown
I was in my master's degree program. I had to take that class during that time. Worth teaching those students.

00:07:39:22 - 00:07:47:06
Unknown
And that was divine intervention. The other divine intervention was, you know, that, prior to this, I had been teaching in a very

00:07:47:06 - 00:07:53:04
Unknown
like upper middle class school. Everything was easy peasy, lemon squeezy. You know, I was

00:07:53:04 - 00:07:55:03
Unknown
I had tenure, I was,

00:07:55:03 - 00:08:02:29
Unknown
well, liked I had friends there, but I just felt like I was just cruising along and I really was up for a challenge.

00:08:03:01 - 00:08:16:22
Unknown
I was also geographically, the school was closer to my house and the new school that I was eating at. But really, the reason why I started looking for a new job instead of staying in that nice cushy situation, was because I wanted to have a challenge, and so

00:08:16:22 - 00:08:18:06
Unknown
that was dropped right in my lap.

00:08:18:06 - 00:08:19:09
Unknown
Whether I liked it or not.

00:08:19:11 - 00:08:24:14
Unknown
A challenge. You got a challenge? I got exactly, exactly. Yeah.

00:08:24:14 - 00:08:34:24
Unknown
I am really curious. Like based on the story that you did tell, what kind of questions were you asking the kids in order to get them to work together? And,

00:08:34:24 - 00:08:45:11
Unknown
change the way that I started to think about math. That is a beautiful question. Okay. The first one, the first thing that comes to mind that happened in that class was, that the students had a hard time understanding fractions.

00:08:45:15 - 00:09:08:14
Unknown
I understanding that, like I had one student argue with me that one fourth, like one over four is the same thing as 0.14. Now, if we look at one fourth as a quarter, right, one fourth is a quarter. She didn't make the connection. That one quarter. It's the same thing as 25% or $0.25 or right. We're here in the United States like we use base ten system with our money.

00:09:08:17 - 00:09:26:12
Unknown
And she fought to the death with me. So I said, okay fractions. Fractions is an issue. So I brought in a clothesline. And I'm looking back and thinking I could have been so was simpler. It was really less like a piece of rope. Right. So a piece of ropes and I attached it across the classroom. So it was like from one from like the door to the wind.

00:09:26:12 - 00:09:30:09
Unknown
It was like diagonal across the classroom. My classroom was kind of small, so I needed a bigger space.

00:09:30:09 - 00:09:33:19
Unknown
And then I gave each student, like,

00:09:33:19 - 00:09:41:15
Unknown
I'm going to show this that your listeners can see. But I gave everybody like an index card. So this is a post-it note, but. Right. And on the index card I would write this the number.

00:09:41:18 - 00:09:43:27
Unknown
Right. And so I gave every student a different number

00:09:43:27 - 00:09:47:08
Unknown
on the index card. And then they had to place the index cards in order

00:09:47:08 - 00:09:53:22
Unknown
from smallest to greatest on a number line. Now this is not an eighth grade level task at least at that time it was not. This is more like

00:09:53:22 - 00:09:55:23
Unknown
I would say like a fourth or fifth grade level task.

00:09:55:23 - 00:10:05:19
Unknown
But these students still needed that reinforcement. They needed to like understand the difference or the the size difference between a number like one fourth and like 9/10, for example.

00:10:05:19 - 00:10:10:07
Unknown
that was one thing I did with them. But it wasn't just the placing the numbers on the number line.

00:10:10:07 - 00:10:21:24
Unknown
It was once we had 5 or 6 numbers on the number line, then I would give I would invite students and give permission to, if you don't agree with something on the number line to go and move it, but you have to tell us why.

00:10:21:24 - 00:10:28:10
Unknown
And that's where the magic started, right? Because first of all, I was asking them to tell me, where do you think one fourth goes on the number line?

00:10:28:10 - 00:10:33:20
Unknown
And then I was giving students in the class to permission to disagree with that positioning.

00:10:33:20 - 00:10:35:21
Unknown
And that's where the magic happens. So that was one,

00:10:35:21 - 00:10:37:18
Unknown
another type of test that I love.

00:10:37:18 - 00:10:49:17
Unknown
And I continue to do this, and I have done the number line task over and over and over again. Is that somebody? Well, there's somebody out there who wrote a book called Clothesline Math. And like I said, I wrote that book. But anyway, I didn't,

00:10:49:17 - 00:10:54:23
Unknown
so another thing that I've done over and over again with classrooms is starting with the answer.

00:10:54:23 - 00:10:57:26
Unknown
So instead of giving students like a whole page of

00:10:57:26 - 00:11:04:05
Unknown
addition or subtraction problems or multiplication and division is saying something like, the answer is 245. What could I do to get there?

00:11:04:05 - 00:11:09:13
Unknown
Or the answer is two what could I do to get there? And these problems, these types of problems, you can

00:11:09:13 - 00:11:15:10
Unknown
make with any number. In fact, over this past summer, this summer, I was with my nephew, who's going to be a sophomore in high school.

00:11:15:10 - 00:11:16:17
Unknown
So he's about like,

00:11:16:17 - 00:11:31:13
Unknown
I guess he's about 15 years old. And I was playing this game with my nephew, my other nephew, who's eight. So play the game with my eight year old and my nephew who's going who's about 15 or 16. He's like, well, can I play too? And they could both play with the same number.

00:11:31:13 - 00:11:33:06
Unknown
It's just I got the answer in different ways.

00:11:33:06 - 00:11:37:14
Unknown
So it's like a beautifully what we call an education, like a differentiated task.

00:11:37:14 - 00:11:54:02
Unknown
the way I was taught math was basically like what you said, like this is how you do it now, like apply this reasoning to over here. And when I tried to teach math to my younger brother at the time, I did the same thing, but he didn't have that same level of understanding.

00:11:54:05 - 00:11:59:26
Unknown
And it was so incredibly frustrating because I didn't know how else to explain it.

00:11:59:26 - 00:12:14:28
Unknown
yeah. And the beauty about teaching in the way that I teach and today I teach, I teach teachers how to teach math. I support teachers, so I go into teachers classrooms and I go into their periods, their planning periods, professional development days.

00:12:14:28 - 00:12:18:03
Unknown
And I do the math with the teachers.

00:12:18:03 - 00:12:25:02
Unknown
And I do that because I want them to feel what it feels like to develop reasoning. And it is not always comfortable.

00:12:25:02 - 00:12:29:28
Unknown
And I think what was happening with these eighth graders is over the years,

00:12:29:28 - 00:12:34:22
Unknown
you and I have talked about, like, you know, that coaching where we talk about emotionally uncomfortable, right?

00:12:34:23 - 00:12:52:15
Unknown
The teachers don't want to be emotionally uncomfortable. It's understandable. I don't want to be emotionally uncomfortable either. So it is way easier. Plus, the textbooks set it up that way to say, here's the four easy steps. If you just repeat it 40 times and you'll be a master. The problem with that

00:12:52:15 - 00:12:57:23
Unknown
is that a year later, two years later, this is sometimes even at the next chapter.

00:12:57:26 - 00:13:11:08
Unknown
The students are not retaining that because they haven't made conceptual connections in their brains. Whereas if they look at a number line and say, well, there's no way that nine 10th grade 9/10 could come in front of one fourth,

00:13:11:08 - 00:13:17:10
Unknown
like closer to zero, because nine is more filled up at 9/10 is more filled up than one fourth.

00:13:17:10 - 00:13:27:25
Unknown
It's like kids will give you those types of answers like they're visualizing it. And so once students can visualize something, they can understand it, then they hold onto it more in their brains.

00:13:27:25 - 00:13:37:11
Unknown
You mentioned something earlier about the magic happening when the kids got to start discussing with each other, or why they disagreed with the number line.

00:13:37:13 - 00:13:40:28
Unknown
Can you talk more about that? Like what was the magic?

00:13:40:28 - 00:13:45:16
Unknown
I think the magic is in them finding their voices.

00:13:45:16 - 00:13:59:04
Unknown
It's, it's right. And knowing that they have something important to contribute so that it's not necessarily math magic. Right. It's like my human magic of oh I have something to contribute.

00:13:59:04 - 00:13:59:28
Unknown
And

00:13:59:28 - 00:14:10:13
Unknown
I matter in this space. And so does that guy over there and that girl over there and, you know, and so it becomes more of a community of practice instead of

00:14:10:13 - 00:14:17:21
Unknown
everybody sitting in rows, just head down, getting getting their work done, they start to realize that other people have ideas that are valuable.

00:14:17:27 - 00:14:20:14
Unknown
I have ideas that are valuable and

00:14:20:14 - 00:14:24:29
Unknown
I, I sometimes equate this magic to and I connect this magic to like

00:14:24:29 - 00:14:32:02
Unknown
in the real world. We have to agree or disagree with people all day long. And so it really taught them the art of.

00:14:32:02 - 00:14:34:17
Unknown
You know, art, I think it taught them

00:14:34:17 - 00:14:38:02
Unknown
how to participate, almost like in a democracy.

00:14:38:02 - 00:14:48:03
Unknown
That people are going to have differences of opinions. And you could both be right. Oh one when one memory I have from that eighth grade group, or maybe it was actually it might have been the following year.

00:14:48:03 - 00:14:49:09
Unknown
Anyway, it doesn't matter.

00:14:49:09 - 00:14:59:00
Unknown
These two girls were in my class and they were twins, and they were feisty and everybody needed to stay out of their way and they had an argument one day

00:14:59:00 - 00:15:00:10
Unknown
about their answers.

00:15:00:10 - 00:15:06:10
Unknown
And so meanwhile, the superintendent who in the United States, like that's the the boss of the whole school district,

00:15:06:10 - 00:15:21:01
Unknown
he happened of course, we walking down the hall at this moment when these two twins are having this knock down, drag out fight, I mean, what they weren't like physically hurting one another, but they were yelling at one another across the room and I was the sooner that I walked in the room and I was sitting on like the, like the windows.

00:15:21:03 - 00:15:27:28
Unknown
So I wasn't even, like in the front of the class. I was, I was just letting the argument happen. So the argument was, is the answer three fourths

00:15:27:28 - 00:15:33:22
Unknown
or the answer 6/8? Both of those answers are equivalent to three fourths success or equivalent to one another.

00:15:33:22 - 00:15:41:18
Unknown
But as beautiful about it is that they argued and argued argued until the point where one of the other kids said, hold on, listen to what you are saying to one another,

00:15:41:18 - 00:15:43:16
Unknown
and then they just all both burst out laughing.

00:15:43:20 - 00:15:49:26
Unknown
And I was like, see? I was like, but they were getting so stuck up in their drama because their sisters and one had to, you know, they were trying to one up on another.

00:15:49:26 - 00:15:51:05
Unknown
But I think that

00:15:51:05 - 00:15:56:00
Unknown
the point in that story is that you can both be right with different

00:15:56:00 - 00:15:58:05
Unknown
when it seems like the answers are different.

00:15:58:07 - 00:16:06:20
Unknown
That's really cool. I remember in my math classes when I was growing up, I was always scared to speak up because if I didn't have the right answer, then there was like,

00:16:06:20 - 00:16:13:19
Unknown
no point to speaking up because I was scared to be wrong. Yeah, but this environment that you're helping to create is incredible.

00:16:13:19 - 00:16:14:07
Unknown
Thank you.

00:16:14:07 - 00:16:16:03
Unknown
something that you just made me think about

00:16:16:03 - 00:16:17:04
Unknown
the arguing

00:16:17:04 - 00:16:20:07
Unknown
Oh, is being a being afraid that you are going to be wrong.

00:16:20:07 - 00:16:25:15
Unknown
So that's another thing that happens that happen with that magic, right. Is that if

00:16:25:15 - 00:16:31:24
Unknown
thinking about the number line, if students put the one fourth or the nine 10th or whatever in the wrong position,

00:16:31:24 - 00:16:33:12
Unknown
it wasn't the end of the world.

00:16:33:17 - 00:16:43:26
Unknown
When that one fourth needed to be moved to a different location, or the 9/10 needed to be moved to another location. And so we were embracing mistakes as part of the learning process. And

00:16:43:26 - 00:16:54:17
Unknown
always giving students what we call in the industry low floor, high ceiling problems to solve, meaning that everybody has an opportunity somewhere to engage with this problem.

00:16:54:17 - 00:17:10:24
Unknown
Right. So the other magic that happened is like, I would I knew which students like you were going to be shy at first. So I would purposely choose select which students were going to. You know, I obviously would have some volunteers, but if I didn't have volunteers, I would select

00:17:10:24 - 00:17:15:21
Unknown
who was going to go in which order and I would purposely choose somebody like Tina.

00:17:15:21 - 00:17:16:06
Unknown
They'd be like,

00:17:16:06 - 00:17:20:15
Unknown
Tina, what do you think? Do you think one fourth and 9/10 are in the right spot?

00:17:20:15 - 00:17:28:19
Unknown
And I would like sometimes pick something that was like obviously wrong. And then you, as Tina could say, well, I really think that 9/10 is bigger than one fourth.

00:17:28:19 - 00:17:31:23
Unknown
And then I would say, okay, let's move it. Let's see what does everybody else think.

00:17:31:23 - 00:17:33:27
Unknown
Right. And then we just kind of continue with this

00:17:33:27 - 00:17:37:23
Unknown
kind of banter back and forth to make it really safe to be,

00:17:37:23 - 00:17:44:15
Unknown
to be correcting mistakes, to be to be making mistakes. Yeah. Permissioning gave my students permission to make mistakes for sure.

00:17:44:15 - 00:17:59:21
Unknown
these days. You said you're not teaching anymore. You are supporting teachers in becoming better math teachers. Yes, yes. So what I do now is I'm a consultant, so I do not. I work in multiple school districts. They contract me out.

00:17:59:21 - 00:18:04:13
Unknown
I find the working with elementary school teachers fascinating because the first thing I ask them

00:18:04:13 - 00:18:08:15
Unknown
is for them to tell me what their experience was learning math.

00:18:08:15 - 00:18:24:22
Unknown
And so I asked them, what's your math story? What's your story on math? And I was just looking at the data from that I collected at the beginning of last year, just yesterday. And it's fascinating to me that how even just meeting me for the very first time, I do do it at a Google form, but they do have to put their names down.

00:18:24:22 - 00:18:28:20
Unknown
So I know, so I can kind of connect the stories to each teach teacher.

00:18:28:20 - 00:18:34:16
Unknown
I didn't do the percentages on it yet, but most of those teachers said had some type of negative experience with math,

00:18:34:16 - 00:18:44:27
Unknown
and there are very few who are like, I loved math. It was my favorite subject. Know that. Like it's it was my least favorite subject, and I grit my teeth through the 50 minutes that I have to teach it every single day.

00:18:44:29 - 00:18:51:25
Unknown
And so the way that we remedy that, to be honest, is to teach, is to work, is have the teachers doing math problems.

00:18:51:25 - 00:18:55:28
Unknown
That's it. They have to they have to learn how to do math, how to

00:18:55:28 - 00:19:00:26
Unknown
feel, say, sitting in the seat of the problem solver, what it feels like to sit with a problem solver.

00:19:00:26 - 00:19:02:16
Unknown
Yeah.

00:19:02:16 - 00:19:05:01
Unknown
That makes a lot of sense, because then

00:19:05:01 - 00:19:12:26
Unknown
having the empathy for the kids allows you to better understand where they're at and maybe which parts that they're struggling with

00:19:12:26 - 00:19:14:25
Unknown
and bring it down. I can imagine

00:19:14:25 - 00:19:18:20
Unknown
having a math teacher that hates math, but seems like a

00:19:18:20 - 00:19:32:29
Unknown
not great spot to start with. No. And it's, you know, it's difficult because a lot of these teachers, they come out of school with an elementary ed certification, and sometimes there's a specialty on top of that, like special education or something like that, or English learners or something like that.

00:19:33:01 - 00:19:38:24
Unknown
But for the most part, they're they're generalists because of the way we've created the system.

00:19:38:24 - 00:19:41:19
Unknown
And in most elementary schools, at least ones that I have worked with,

00:19:41:19 - 00:19:43:08
Unknown
every teacher has to teach everything.

00:19:43:08 - 00:19:53:17
Unknown
So if I had to do that, I, I don't I I've been blessed with only being a only needing to teach math every year. One year I did need to teach science, which was totally fine because they're so related.

00:19:53:19 - 00:19:54:07
Unknown
But

00:19:54:07 - 00:20:16:08
Unknown
I would have a very hard time teaching math and reading and writing and social studies and science. It's like five off the top of my head, five different things that teachers need to switch gears and be able to deliver the content to students in math gets pushed to the bottom of the barrel every single time. And it's I don't blame the teachers for that.

00:20:16:08 - 00:20:17:07
Unknown
It's more like,

00:20:17:07 - 00:20:33:04
Unknown
in fact, one quick story is when I was when I was student teaching at two placements, I had a placement because of the way my degree was. I had a seventh grade placement and a fourth replacement when I met my fourth grade cooperating teacher, who was the teacher whose classroom it was at, I was going into student teach.

00:20:33:04 - 00:20:45:21
Unknown
She was going through the schedule and she said, and sometimes some days we don't get to math. So at the time I was probably like, I don't know, 20, 21 years old. I think an old lady. We are going to get to math every day that I am here.

00:20:45:21 - 00:20:52:10
Unknown
But the fact that she and that was a long time ago, you would never be able to get away with that these days because of the accountability the teachers have.

00:20:52:15 - 00:20:53:14
Unknown
However,

00:20:53:14 - 00:20:56:06
Unknown
like the fact that she was comfortable to say that to me,

00:20:56:06 - 00:20:56:22
Unknown
what

00:20:56:22 - 00:20:57:03
Unknown
does

00:20:57:03 - 00:20:58:06
Unknown
that mean? That was

00:20:58:06 - 00:21:01:09
Unknown
that was a big like impact on me, that that statement

00:21:01:09 - 00:21:02:08
Unknown
just don't get to it.

00:21:02:08 - 00:21:02:19
Unknown
Yeah.

00:21:02:19 - 00:21:04:11
Unknown
It's such a foundational skill,

00:21:04:11 - 00:21:10:07
Unknown
you know, and I think what people forget about is it's, don't realize it. It's getting back to what we were saying earlier.

00:21:10:08 - 00:21:17:05
Unknown
It's not just like learning how to add and subtract fractions or learning how to multiply fractions or graph data or whatever.

00:21:17:05 - 00:21:35:23
Unknown
Learning math trains our brains to function in a way that we need outside of the classroom. In so many ways. Is these ideas a problem solving, spatial reasoning? Proportional reasoning? Like even driving in the car and being like, okay, do I have enough gas to get to the

00:21:35:23 - 00:21:39:27
Unknown
next destination or enough battery in my EV yet?

00:21:40:01 - 00:21:44:05
Unknown
That usually figures it out for you because the technology is so good. But

00:21:44:05 - 00:21:48:27
Unknown
we need we need proportional reasoning every single day, no matter what we do. And.

00:21:48:27 - 00:21:57:13
Unknown
So and it's not like we're sitting down writing a proportion and solving it. It's, it's just the number sense that comes along with it. Really, really important.

00:21:57:13 - 00:22:01:20
Unknown
And would you say if is logic also a math skill too.

00:22:01:22 - 00:22:13:05
Unknown
Oh yes. Definitely. And logic, believe it or not, it's something that I struggle with. So another interesting point is that, you know, teachers see me coming in, they're like, oh, here comes Doctor Pratt, the math expert. I'm like, no,

00:22:13:05 - 00:22:17:17
Unknown
there's no expert. And stamped on my forehead. It's more of, I'm here to

00:22:17:17 - 00:22:21:14
Unknown
help. See, see you and and see what you're learning.

00:22:21:14 - 00:22:24:16
Unknown
So to answer your question, like, oh my gosh, don't give me a logic problem because

00:22:24:16 - 00:22:34:22
Unknown
there is a really hard. But then I'm like, okay, so so I need to do more of those because it's sitting in the seat of the problem solver and developing that kind of logical thinking.

00:22:34:22 - 00:22:35:05
Unknown
Yeah.

00:22:35:05 - 00:22:40:14
Unknown
And struggled with logic a lot. Do. Did you have that, did you have like a class called Logic or.

00:22:40:14 - 00:22:58:18
Unknown
No. So when I did, a lot of that was when I was trying to do the mCAT testing or a med school, and they would have like the logical reasoning section. And every time I was like, oh my gosh. So now it's it's a lot to think about. And it it's almost like you have to train your brain to think logically.

00:22:58:18 - 00:23:02:05
Unknown
I think sometimes so certain there's certain parts of math where you

00:23:02:05 - 00:23:03:22
Unknown
it's, it's like building a muscle.

00:23:03:22 - 00:23:04:08
Unknown
Yeah.

00:23:04:08 - 00:23:08:28
Unknown
If people feel inspired by this and they want to hear more about your

00:23:08:28 - 00:23:13:07
Unknown
journey, I guess with math and like the things that you're teaching, where can people find more about you?

00:23:13:07 - 00:23:18:01
Unknown
Okay, well, the first thing is, I do have a podcast, and the title of the podcast is Blue Glasses Math.

00:23:18:01 - 00:23:27:01
Unknown
I'm not wearing my blue glasses right now. I have other blue glasses. But anyway, and then the whole idea of the podcast is shifting our perspective on what it actually means to be a math person.

00:23:27:01 - 00:23:37:15
Unknown
Does it mean to do sit and do 40 problems in two minutes, or does it mean to grapple and, and struggle through problems, make mistakes and learn from them.

00:23:37:15 - 00:23:50:04
Unknown
And so it's called blue glasses math. You can find it anywhere. Podcasts are listened to. And in that podcast, you'll be able to hear the full story about how my students tried to get me fired and what I did with the shiny red textbooks.

00:23:50:04 - 00:23:58:20
Unknown
Yeah. And I also, in terms of social media, I really hang out most on Instagram, and LinkedIn is a close second.

00:23:58:23 - 00:24:08:21
Unknown
So I love to hear from people there and both places. I, let's say on Instagram, I'm at Blue Glasses math and on LinkedIn, at my name, Pamela Brett.

00:24:08:21 - 00:24:23:25
Unknown
And for your podcast, is that going to be valuable for people, even if they aren't math teachers? A great question, yes. If you are a parent who has a child who comes home with math homework, you need to listen to this podcast 100%.

00:24:23:25 - 00:24:38:00
Unknown
Because what it does, it helps to debunk. Sorry, can I have one time for like one more quickie? Okay, but getting back to my nephew, the other that I was with at the beach and I was he was eight years old and I said, yeah. I said, you know, Lucas, the answer is

00:24:38:00 - 00:24:39:26
Unknown
7 or 14 or whatever. I said,

00:24:39:26 - 00:24:43:00
Unknown
his mom sitting next to me, love her to death.

00:24:43:00 - 00:24:44:16
Unknown
His she's my sister in law.

00:24:44:16 - 00:24:58:29
Unknown
this child did not have more than four seconds to think before she jumped in and said, think about it this way. What about this? Don't you remember what he did to it? And I looked at her and I said, knock it off, because what you are telling him in your behavior?

00:24:58:29 - 00:25:07:02
Unknown
I tried to like whatever, but I kind of gave her a little bit of a beat down. I said, you are teaching your son that in order to be successful, he needs you to intervene.

00:25:07:02 - 00:25:13:03
Unknown
And so, to answer your question, yes, parents need to listen to this because it helps to understand, you know, that it's

00:25:13:03 - 00:25:17:11
Unknown
it's okay that your student is struggling with their homework because that's part of the process.

00:25:17:11 - 00:25:26:06
Unknown
But if you're yeah, but if you're a teacher or a school leader, Math Coach definitely is a great podcast for you to listen to. I've got some amazing guests the other night. And so, yeah.

00:25:26:06 - 00:25:31:02
Unknown
Thank you so much for being on the podcast today and sharing your story. Thanks for inviting me, Tina.

00:25:31:02 - 00:25:31:26
Unknown
I had a great time.

00:25:31:26 - 00:25:32:18
Unknown
Hi everyone.

00:25:32:18 - 00:25:49:01
Unknown
If you live in Windsor, Essex County area in Ontario, Canada, then you should know that I host an open mic live storytelling event the last Saturday of every month at Alo Lounge on Erie Street in Little Italy from 5 to 7 p.m..

00:25:49:04 - 00:25:55:11
Unknown
If you don't know what open mic storytelling is, while I encourage anyone to come up and share their story,

00:25:55:11 - 00:26:03:29
Unknown
have different themes. Every month. The event celebrates connection, our humanness, our emotions, our rawness.

00:26:04:00 - 00:26:11:08
Unknown
It gives us space to really express ourselves and to have people listen. Because I feels like

00:26:11:08 - 00:26:14:00
Unknown
we don't really get too much of this

00:26:14:00 - 00:26:14:29
Unknown
anymore.

00:26:15:04 - 00:26:29:02
Unknown
It is essentially a gathering of the souls and sharing a little part of ourselves with each other, whether it be a funny story, a sad story, a happy story, a romantic story, any story that is yours

00:26:29:03 - 00:26:30:03
Unknown
you can share

00:26:30:03 - 00:26:33:09
Unknown
and I'm loving the community that is coming from this event. So

00:26:33:10 - 00:26:40:20
Unknown
come to the event. I hope to see you there. You can purchase tickets at tales of the town aka.