Seating charts for equity

I can't imagine traveling to new lands and not wanting to try their cuisine. But there really are people who bring their own food with them. One of the best things about traveling in my opinion is being educated  in the sense of the Latin root word — being led out of my own ignorance.

The same is true for me about attending a large, great school. It always has been. From the moment I arrive in a great new school, I feel excited and open to meeting and learning with all different kinds of people from different cultures and backgrounds. I want to expand my own limited world view.

But it seems inevitable that, without outside intervention, I often end up knowing and hanging out with the other Buddhists and Jews in any room. Cultural affinity is a force that possesses a tractor beam all its own. Fortunately, I am not the first to have noticed noticed this.

Our amazing counseling department and our Peer Resources program noticed this phenomenon too, and when they did their most recent student survey of our very large, urban, diverse student body, they put in some questions about this in their student well-being section. And the results were very moving to me.

Students overwhelmingly reported that when they first arrived at our school, they felt enormous pressure to connect with their cultural affinity groups. And for this reason, they reported, they deeply appreciate seating charts in classes that take this pressure away. This practice overwhelmingly helped them to feel that they fit in here and that those who are different from them in some ways are more like them in other ways than they are inclined to believe. It also created a zone of psychological and emotional safety to explore social connections with others not as "Others" but as fellow explorers in a safe space.

These findings touched my heart. Our kids' deeper wisdom never fail to blow me away.

So I sit here on the Sunday before the first day of Spring term making up seating charts, making sure that everybody arrives in my classes in the same boat as everybody else, and with the same opportunity to experience connection with others in as safe a space as I can create.

I will also pre-make Seating Charts #2, #3, and #4 so that it's convenient for me to change the seating without having to think. Sometimes "don't think" is the best rule.

I don't have any scintillating conclusions to draw here. I just wanted to document for myself what I am doing and why so that when I forget, I can more easily remember.

"The organism moves towards health" — reflections on TMC14

Everybody is writing blog posts about feeling like a fraud after an amazing experience at Twitter Math Camp 2014. Impostor syndrome. I feel like a fraud too, at least, most of the time, but I am trying to practice refraining from my conditioned habits of reacting automatically and giving in in response to that defense mechanism. I am practicing not-reacting. I am trying to notice the positive energy that is there and to just allow it. I am trying to allow myself to experience myself as a competent, good-enough teacher I have respect for and want to continue to be.

me practicing accepting myself as a competent,
good-enough teacher, seen here
with supportive tweeps & a giant margarita

What worked in the Group Work Working Group session was setting up a structure to sustain that positive energy of presence. Having learned how to do that is a huge gift I have given myself over the past 25 years of dharma practice. It's a "gift" that comes from working very hard at being present and practicing every day, rain or shine, whether I feel like it or not, whether I do it well or do it badly. I follow the three teachings my teacher Natalie Goldberg learned from her teacher Katagiri Roshi: Continue under all circumstances. Don't be tossed away. Make positive effort for the good. I have done that in my practice every single day for over 25 years. It's the one thing I know in my feet that I am good at.

starting with restorative classroom circles

So I decided to bring THAT to Twitter Math Camp this year.

The structure works because it is a structure for teaching and sustaining presence — learning to be present with an open heart. I have dharma sisters and brothers all over the world, but when we practice together online, we practice asynchronously — each of us on our own, in our own lives, in our own homes. When we come together using the asynchronous forum of online communication, we maintain that same structure of presence. Write when you write. Read when you read. Listen when you listen.

No comment.

using the Talking Points structure; no comment

"No comment" is the most important part of the structure, and the hardest part to implement online in a forum like Twitter, which is designed to support comments. "No comment" is about allow there to be space for everyone. It is about all being present together authentically and about staying present with whatever arises. THAT is the thing that most adolescents don't get exposed to in their lives, and it is the thing that can make the greatest possible difference in the quality of their experience — both in the math classroom and everywhere else in their lives.

Most people in our culture don't have a lot of experience in being present and staying present. It takes an enormous amount of energy to learn how to stay present and not flinch. But do that with anything you love and you will have a magical experience. Do that with math, and you'll unlock the treasures of your amazing human mind. But being present with others in a big open space is hard. At first it can be scary. It's very naked. That is why the structure of "no comment" is so important. It helps to create a shared space of emotional safety. It gets everybody focused on their own stuff and supports dropping the "act" you bring to most in-person interactions. That's why it's good to do so right from the start. It's about reframing our conditioned habits of personality.

Very quickly, the timed structure and the practice of "no comment" makes the practice of presence very freeing. You begin to relax into that big open space. You become curious. Your defenses soften. You begin to notice the interesting patterns of your own mind. Best self and worst self. Curious self and bored self. Zen mind and monkey mind. Defense mechanisms, such as snark.

collaborative mathematics
using the Talking Points structure; no comment

The practice of "no comment" creates a space in which the authentic thoughts of your own amazing human mind can arise and step forward. And we honor that process by persisting in not-commenting as we continue.

Natalie describes this process as stepping forward with your own mind.

Once you get a taste for being present, you'll naturally begin to crave it more. That is something I count on in my classroom management practice. Fred always said, "The organism moves towards health." That is one of his greatest teachings for me. "The organism moves towards health" means that, in the process of growing up, we all fall away from the naturally sane and healthy patterns of our organism. "Fight or flight" is a falling away from the natural discharge cycle of "rest and digest" we experienced as infants. When you're hungry, you eat. When you're tired, you sleep. Fred said there is a deeper wisdom inside us that is always available for us to tap back into. It's like an underground stream that is part of our psychological and emotional water table. When we practice being present through structures like Talking Points or meditation or writing practice, it feels like a homecoming — a homecoming to a natural state that is healthy and inquisitive and curious to see what will happen next. It is a natural reconnection with our own inner growth mindset that is our birthright — not some artificial fantasy state we impose on students from without by telling them to have one.

assigning competence after group work & 
observation; still no comment

A growth mindset is just the psyche's way of attuning to the fundamental idea that our organism moves naturally in the direction of health if we will let it — if we can get out of its way and allow it to unfold as it needs to. Allowing means learning to refrain from interfering with that natural movement, and so we use structures that make it manageable for ordinary human beings like us to access the extraordinary ocean of intellectual and creative possibility that is mathematics.

Ten minutes at a time is about what I can muster, I have learned over the years.

Kate test-driving a geometry task using the
Talking Points structure; still no comment

In my experience teaching meditation and writing practice and other structures that cultivate presence, I have found it is about what most people can handle. Ten minutes of Talking Points, no comment — GO. Ten minutes of writing practice — keep your hand moving, no comment, GO. Ten minutes of mathematical conversation, no comment, GO. Learning how to be present with the big, scary openness of not-knowing is no small thing. That is why we zone out, check our phones a hundred times an hour, play video games, watch TV, assault-eat, numb out, zone out, distract ourselves. We all crave the real stuff, but connecting with it feels like sticking a butter knife into the electrical socket. So we break it into more manageable chunks. We set a limit for ourselves and dive in for a limited period. We practice being present for ten minutes at a time. And then we give ourselves and our students a break. It helps us build our tolerance for the intensity of presence and it builds our courage to come back and try it again the next time.

Natalie says that monkey mind is the guardian at the gate, protecting the treasures of our heart and strengthening us for the challenge of opening ourselves to presence and to Big Mind. The structure of "no comment" makes it feel safe for us to touch in to that fire at the center of our being. It helps us to close the gap between what we THINK we've been doing and what we have ACTUALLY done. For me, it's about strengthening students' courage to open their hearts to contact with their amazing mathematical minds — with what my friend Max Ray of The Math Forum at Drexel calls their "mathematical imaginations." We math teachers know the secret that everyone has this mathematical imagination. Our greatest challenge is to get students to trust that they have it too and can access it safely and reliably.

________________________________________

TRY THIS
Read Taming Your Gremlin by Rick Carson.

Writing apologies for racist classroom actions

About a month before the end of school, I wrote my first apology note for colluding with racism in the classroom. I know this note will not be my last.

I used what I have learned from restorative practices over the years: Speak from the heart. Listen from the heart. Say just enough. Respect the talking piece.

The first thing I did was to listen from the heart. My student had yelled very loudly, "You're being racist!" I had been sure, even in that moment, that there was a level at which he'd been right. I needed to inquire into his perspective and into my own to understand as much as I could about how and why this had been true.

After meditating and reflecting and journaling about what had happened, I wrote him a letter.

Dear ___,

I owe you an apology.

I have been treating you unfairly. I have been calling you out for being disruptive in class more than I have called out others, and I agree with you that that is wrong. I need to not do that, and I pledge to be mindful of that from now on. 

I also realized that I have been pushing you harder than I push some of the other students in our class, and I realize that that is wrong too. My intentions were good ones: I see your brilliance and, as a citizen, I want to recruit people like you into leadership. Our leaders are lost, and my generation has really messed things up. I came back to teaching because teachers are the talent scouts of the future, and our country needs people like you in leadership.

But that is my stuff — not necessarily yours.

After you pointed out my biased treatment of you, I realized that you are right. I have been treating you differently, and that is wrong. It was wrong of me to try to impose my agenda onto you. It is also inconsistent with my own values because it is important to me that you be empowered and respected to choose your own goals and make your own decisions about how to lead your life.

So this letter is my attempt to clean up my own side of the street. From now on, I am going to do a better job of respecting your boundaries and keeping my personal agenda on my own side of the street.

I hope you can accept my apology.

With great respect and affection,

Dr. X

I asked his favorite teacher to give him the letter, knowing that, if I had tried to give it to him myself, he would have simply torn it up without reading it. I am a little ashamed about this part.

But if I am going to be an impeccable warrior in this fight, I need to accept that part too and be ruthlessly honest about moving beyond my own personal likes and dislikes. Everything I do needs to reflect the values I am trying to convey into this world.

My student and I never discussed the letter, but afterwards, I noticed a change in our relationship. For my part, I stayed focused on being as mindful as I could in my efforts to treat him and all students equitably. But I noticed a change in him too. He seemed to start showing up — really showing up —every single day in class after that. He left his earphones and his cell phone in his pocket and he was much more fully present in class than he had been all year. He advocated for his own learning and persevered in ways I had not seen before.

He was not perfect and neither was I. But we became a lot more relaxed around each other, and I got a felt sense that we understood each other a little better. We were both less defended and more porous and receptive to life. We could receive each other's humor better and learn from each other. All in all, we seemed to be moving together more harmoniously toward the goal of learning together. And that was what I truly wanted.

This is the compelling thing about restorative practices for me. They give us a way to continue forward together. I am pretty sure this is why Archbishop Desmond Tutu's memoir is titled, No Future Without Forgiveness. Rage won't heal the world. And an overly defended student cannot adopt an optimal learning posture. Since that is my deepest hope for all students in my classroom, I need to do everything in my power to make it an equitable place for every student so that can happen as often as possible.

Compound Inequalities Treasure Map

Never underestimate the power of novelty to help you engage certain students.

I just spent the last hour and a half-long block period with my jaw on the floor, watching in amazement as my most discouraged, 12th grade College Prep Math students worked productively and peacefully on, of all things, the analysis and solving of compound inequalities.

During my prep, I turned a boring worksheet into a treasure map. And that turned a boring requirement into a very peaceful and enjoyable period.

As she was leaving, one girl asked, Could we please do more work like this?

I'll take that as a compliment!

Writing Kids Notes

So much is not going right in my new classroom, but some things are. One thing that is going right is my off-stage strategy of writing kids notes. Megan Hayes-Golding blogged about her teacher notecards a year ago, and right away I stole the idea. Megan is a genius. They are comic strip-style notecards with "Dr. S" at the top of the main thought bubble, surrounded by comic strip energy.

What do I write notes for? The answer is as individual as the kids themselves. Sometimes I write a note to compliment a student on her renewed focus in class. Other times I will write a note to thank a student for a particularly insightful contribution to our discussion or to our classroom community.

Sometimes I write a note to encourage a student's courage:

Dear ___ — 

Thank you for asking Mr. X if you could come to my room during 4th period for help with your completing the square homework. I was proud of you for advocating for yourself when you were not sure what to do. Once we got to the bottom of that one piece of confused thinking, you were completing the square like a champ. For future reference, once Mr. X has called over, you don't have to wait outside the door to come in — you can just come right in.

Keep at it, ___. This new approach you are trying out is really working. — Dr. S

Another powerful kind of note is an apology for something boneheaded or inadvertent that I have done.

Dear ___

I am writing to apologize for calling you __ [another student's name] the other day in class. I felt bad all day about that because I value you so much for all the energy and effort you bring to our class. I never want to hurt your feelings, but I could see that when I made that mistake, it really hurt your feelings. I hope you will accept my sincere apology for my actions.  — Dr. S 

In my new school setting, I notice a thousand times a day how teacher energy and attention and support are a form of currency in the classroom and whole-school economy. Notes become talismans that support new behaviors and learning patterns and most importantly, courage. They are tangible artifacts of social and emotional learning that is every bit as hard-won for a student's mathematical and academic development as their mathematical skills.

Whatever the circumstances from which they come, I want all of my students to grow up into compassionate and mindful persons of power in their communities.

Sometimes the competencies we need most to cultivate within students are social and emotional. Many times I notice that the lack of well-developed psychological or emotional resiliency blocks a student from being fully present in their mathematics and from taking even small risks with their learning. And if we want students to be accountable for their behaviors, then we also need to model being accountable for our own.

Dear ___,   Thank you for telling me what is not working for you in our class. In addition to showing great courage in your learning, you have also saved me from wasting more of everybody's time using the same old failed teaching ideas. From now on, I am going to do more direct instruction and note-taking practice at the beginning of class first — before we break into group work. I think that will help you and the whole class to get the main idea students need to be successful with our investigations and practice problems. Thank you for helping me to understand what is not working for you so I can find a way to do it better. — Dr. S

Notes can become treasures that help students remember to advocate for themselves. There's nothing secret inside their envelopes, but they heighten kids' awareness that something important has been going on and that I have noticed it. Most of my students have never been noticed at school for much of anything. But because they are amazing and growing human beings, they want it. Some of them want it bad. And that is a big part of the culture I am trying to create. I want students to want to receive positive acknowledgment of something they have done in class.

"Dr. S! Percy is trying to look at my letter!"

"Percy! Leave Q's letter alone! That is her stuff!" 

Sometimes this system of accountability touches a nerve. Sometimes it touches a heart.

A dented patchwork circle: new school, new impressions

This was my first week in my new school, which means I've been going through a few simultaneous transitions: (1) from middle schoolers to 11th and 12th graders, (2) from a 15-mile commute to a 1.5-mile commute, and (3) from a high-performing to a very diverse, high-need school.

I could not be more excited.

This first week was challenging because my partner-teacher and I were making a transition we could not inform them about fully until the end of the week. Also, he is beloved, which makes him a tough act to follow. But he is also my friend, so it was good, I think, for the kids to see that even math teachers have math teacher friends and that we are working hard to support them in a difficult transition. We did a restorative circle with Advisory so that everyone could be heard in the process of leave-taking, and we will do a round of circles with everybody tomorrow, Monday, to acknowledge the transition and to embody the process of support.

Our talking piece for circle practice is The Batman Ball — a small, inflated rubber ball with Batman on it that moved around the circle as each participant expressed his or her feelings about our shared situation.

What really struck me was their honesty and their authenticity. They honored the circle and each other. And they were willing to give me a chance. I know I will probably receive some of their displaced frustration and feelings of abandonment over the next few weeks, but they were making positive, honest effort that was moving to witness. For the guys in the class, it was especially hard. Most of them have at least one strong female authority figure in their lives, but for many of them, Mr. T was it — their one adult male role model: a young, whip-smart, kind, funny, warm, math-wizardy hipster with oversized glasses, a ready smile, and a heart the size of the ocean.

"Meetings end in departures," the Buddha said, but the fact that it's true doesn't make it any easier. They're still here, and now with me, but their hearts are going to be hurting for a little while. Plus we have finals coming up.

The other thing that made me happy to see was that they are incredibly capable math learners — more capable than they realize. Our department uses complex instruction pretty much exclusively, which was one of the reasons I really wanted to teach there. These gum-cracking wiseacres some of whom live in situations which are hard for most of us to imagine will sit their butts down in their table groups and do group work. I mean serious, collaborative mathematics.

The fact that they don't yet believe in themselves is a different problem. But that is a workable problem too.

My classroom is across the hall from the Special Ed department's special day class, and they are generous with their chilled filtered water and holiday cheer.

So tomorrow is another new beginning. I am trying to stay open and to notice and not to hesitate as I jump in. I am dressing warmly, drinking lots of water, and making effort to be present with an open heart. Looking forward to seeing what happens next.

"Wow, what a great question!" or Repeat After Me: A Unit Test is Still a Learning Opportunity"

I have met teachers who refuse to answer questions of any kind at all during tests, and I admit that this puzzles me because from where I sit, those are some of the highest-leverage teaching and learning opportunities I will ever have.

I just hate to waste them.

For they are the moments when I have my students' complete and undivided attention.

And that means they are my best hope for encouraging and guiding students in the process of productive struggle.

During a test, I will happily entertain anybody's question about anything. Really. Ask me anything. I will gladly offer encouragement and encourage their courage because for many students, THAT is the moment at which they are most deeply engaged and present in the process of struggling with their learning.

But I am apparently the most frustrating person in the world because the best answer I will ever give students is to say, "THAT is a GREAT QUESTION!"

I smile and nod and encourage them and urge them to keep going. And at first, they really think they hate me for it.

During today's Math 8 test, kids kept asking questions and I kept answering, "That is a GREAT question! What a terrific insight!" and leaving to move on to the next questioner. "But is this RIGHT?" They would ask, sounding wounded. And I would say, "You are asking a FANTASTIC question! Keep going!" and move right along.

Finally somebody thought to ask me in a tiny and supplicating voice, "Dr. S, is THIS a good question to ask?" And I peered over and looked at their paper and exclaimed, "Yes! That is a super-fantastic question!"

I was certainly the most annoying person in the room, but they are starting to catch on to this whole productive struggle business. Eventually it became a humorous trope. "Oh, yeah — don't bother asking. I'm sure that's a really GREAT question."

To which I would chime in, "Yes — it really IS a super-great question!"

Don't get me wrong — this is NOT an easy thing to do. It takes strength and practice and intestinal fortitude. It will never be featured as "great classroom action." But it is the most precious and valuable thing I know how to offer my students.

I can say this because I have also been on the receiving end of this kind of teaching. It is a teaching about the value of struggle. It is an incredibly precious gift, but nobody can ever explain it to you. You actually have to experience it in order to understand what a profound act of respect it is for the primacy and centrality of your own personal experience to your own personal learning.

I spent plenty of years complaining bitterly about meditation teachers who practiced this kind of bounded containment. But I sat with it. I stayed with it. I learned first to accept it, and then to embrace it. After a lot of struggle, it humbled me. It changed me in ways big and small. It opened my heart and empowered me to discover the value of struggling within my own life's journey, as well as in subjects like mathematics. That kind of preciousness and wholeheartedness is all too rare in America, but I hope that all human beings will at least taste it at some point in their lives.

So even though it was in some ways a crappy day and a frustrating day and an exasperating day, it was also a kind of gift day too. I want to remember that.

Collaboration Literacy Part 2 — DRAFT Rubric: essential skills for mathematical learning groups

I have said this before: middle schoolers are extremely concrete thinkers. This is why I find it so helpful to have a clear and concrete rubric I can use to help them to understand assessment of their work as specifically as possible. I'm reasonably happy with the rubric I've revised over the years for problem-solving, as it seems to help students diagnose and understand what went wrong in their individual work and where they need to head. But I've realized I also needed a new rubric — one for what I've been calling "collaboration literacy" in this blog. My students need help naming and understanding the various component skills that make up being a healthy and valuable collaborator.

My draft of this rubric for collaboration, which is grounded in restorative practices, can be found on the MS Math Teacher's wiki. I would very much value your input and feedback on this tool and its ideas.

I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about how and why Complex Instruction does not work for me. Suffice it to say that the rigid assignment of individual roles is a deal breaker. If CI works for you, please accept that I am happy that you have something that works well for you in your teaching practice.

This rubric incorporates a lot of great ideas from a lot of sources I admire deeply, including the restorative practices people everywhere, Dr. Fred Joseph Orr, Max Ray and The Math Forum, Malcolm Swan, Judy Kysh/CPM, Brian R. Lawler, Dan Pink's book Drive, Sam J. Shah, Kate Nowak, Jason Buell, Megan Hayes-Golding, Ashli Black, Grace A. Chen, Breedeen Murray, Avery Pickford, "Sophie Germain," and yes, also the Complex Instruction folks. I hope it is worthy of all that they have taught me.