At the CCTM (Colorado Council of Teachers of Mathematics) conference this year, I had the honor to present an Ignite Session. The set-up of an Ignite is a 5 minute presentation where the powerpoint will move to the next slide every 15 seconds, whether or not you are ready. Inspired by recent events in our world and personal reflection, I wrote the following on discovering my position in the scheme of education and teaching. Below is the original piece, however, to fit the Ignite format, I had to greatly cut it down. The video to that can be found through the link below. Enjoy!
Taking off the Binary Bifocals
Let’s face it,
When it comes to math teachers,
There’s exists a few stereotypes
And I have felt the uncomfortable wrappings that have covered me
Nerd
A Unique sense of humor
Un-social-able
And as much as I try to break these wrappings,
These stereotypes
I remain a label
And something tells me
One
Or two
Hundred of you
Have found yourself conforming to some of these
And many other
Stereotypes
You know… the kinds that we confront when we meet people for the first time –
I’m sure you’ve all had an interaction like this,
“Nice to meet you too… And what do you do?”
Me? I teach math
“Eww… I was always bad at math…
I could never do math especially when they started adding in letters…
But you must be so smart…
And At least it’s easy to grade.
Only right and wrong answers.
None of those essays…”
And it occurred to me that many others out there see us
Math teachers
Through this binary perspective
Conforming to a label they have created
We either are a math teacher ore we are not
We either are a one or we are a zero
We are…
And we are both the product of and the producers of
Right and wrong
Let’s face it,
As math teachers, we have created our own little matrix
One that we view our world, our schools, our students through
A pair of binary bifocals if you will
And we see our world in that way.
I know I did
I’d rely on
Rows and columns of students
All ones and zeros
A binary view
A view of students as knowing or not knowing
A view of students as on task or not on task
A view of students as passing or not passing
Black or White,
Foreign or domestic,
Male or female
And I did this
Keanu’d my own matrix world
From a position of power
Power that we all have
Power that we may sometimes forget we have
Power that we exude even when we don’t try
Power that makes the ones and zeros
I used that power to impart my perspective
I would bend the students to be my ones
Others I’d leave behind in a land of zeros
Because that’s what they had earned…
From the moment I entered teaching
Put on my bifocals
I knew I wanted to change the world
I wanted to save students
Unlike the world that saved me
Through my lenses
I saw my past
I saw that I grew up always wanting,
Never having enough
But always having just enough
I knew no one would give me a future
So I knew I had to give myself a future
I knew I had to work hard
Get good grades
Earn scholarships
And work my way through college on two jobs
While I was student teaching
But I overcame my fate
On my own
And I returned to the world that gave me a chance
So I put on my glasses
And entered my first classroom
Well not my classroom
I had the pleasure of sharing rooms
Being on the bottom of the proverbial pole
But that’s ok
My life had started at the bottom
And I had climbed up once
And being on the bottom of the pole,
I was given mostly “bottom” classes
Geometry… Survey…
A class for students who struggled
Who had two years of Algebra
Who as juniors were learning Geometry
But a Geometry devoid of proofs
A Geometry devoid of rigor
A Geometry devoid of color
As we used a two tonal book
That two tonal book
Was indicative of my two tonal, binary view
These were the zeros
These were the ones – the ones that did not know math
And this is where I began my quest to save those that needed saving
Help those that needed it to escape a fate
Escape a community
That was obviously destroying them
I mean that’s what we learn from the evening news
And when I looked at the class and saw
A class more diverse than the makeup of the school
It further reinforced that the students needed saving
And I would be that savior
Sure along the way, I had challenges
I was confronted with cultures I didn’t interact with growing up
And I made mistakes
For some of which I was called racist
Through whispers, words, and ways
But not me, no, not me, I could never be racist….
Racism doesn’t’ exist anymore…
Right?
And I kept those glasses on for a long time…
But I heard a teacher exclaim once –
“It doesn’t matter to me if they’re white or black…
I treat all students the same”
And I felt the glasses slipping
I pushed to have a two period class for students struggling in Algebra
A logical thing to do instead of having students take Algebra over two years
And denied opportunities
And had teachers retort
“You can’t keep those kids in class for two periods”
When I did get the class
A class consisting of under-represented populations
I realized those kids were those kids
And the glasses slipped more
I worked with a student who was eventually removed from the Honors program
Because she failed her French class
Because she would miss class to tend to her family
And her teacher would give her zeros on all the assignments from those days
Including tests
Until she failed
And as a Latina she saw her White counterparts given time to make up assignments from their absences
And the glasses fell to the edge of my nose
And then one day
A student,
A Black boy
Came into my room late,
Later than he should have
And instead of letting him stay and learn with his classmates
I made him leave to get a pass, knowing he wouldn’t come back
And other students who saw the interaction confronted me,
Told me I wouldn’t have done that to other students in the class.
That I was hard because he was Black, and male
And they were right.
And I had no choice anymore
I took my glasses..
Off.
And suddenly my world that I had created for myself
A world that was rational
That was once all ones and zeros
Suddenly became irrational
Became an infinite array of all the irrationals in between zero and one
Every student unique and different
No one conforming to a stereotype
Because you can’t create a rule for something that is without a rule,
Without end
Each with their own sense of beauty
Each one would be the best student I ever had
And I could finally see
I saw my past
I saw that even when I thought I was alone in pulling myself up
I was pulled up by society
As a White, Protestant, Male
It didn’t matter that I didn’t have the means
I had the image, the identity
And I conformed to a societal success story
So I became that story
I didn’t earn it.
And I saw my present.
I saw the building I was teaching in,
The students I worked with,
The injustices that were occurring
So I decided to work for change –
Being open about the injustices I saw with our administration
Yet from a perspective of a White male
If I couldn’t give back to society everything it had given me
Because of my race
Gender,
Religion
I would use that position to advocate
I decided to change the way I taught.
I began my foray into social justice,
Wiggling a toe,
Sticking in a leg,
Then diving in and back out,
A work that I have committed to learning and teaching
But a work that can’t happen overnight,
A work that can’t be done while wearing the binary bifocals
And I saw my future
I saw the chance to speak to people,
Like I am today,
And to spread a message
To tell people that you may still be wearing your binary bifocals
And, you may have lofty goals
Like I had
Change the world
But who’s world are you changing?
And is it yours to change?
For me, it is now my call to teach the students
To be the change
They want to see in the world
Save the students
But from what?
From what I have seen without my glasses
Students are brilliant in their own right
In their own way
I chose to be at their side,
Guide, support, and raise up
I chose to know the students,
To learn from them,
Their stories, their culture
And it makes me a better me,
A better math teacher
And not be called a racist while doing it…
Yet –
We are so afraid to be called an –ist
We do nothing about the –isms
We see the –isms as belonging to others
But from our perch of power and privilege
We are the –isms
So I chose to use my power to fight the –isms I can control
Whether you chose to see it our not,
We are no longer in a world of
Black or White,
Foreign or domestic,
Male or female
There is an infinite world in between
And if students are not knowing
Not on task
Not passing
It’s not their fault,
It’s mine.
After a prior speaking engagement,
I once had someone in the audience tell me,
“You sure look like a math teacher,
But you don’t sound like a math teacher”.
And the wrappings around me have begun to crack,
And for some who know me, those stereotypes about us Math Teachers,
Have begun to fade away.
And they can for you too
Just take off the binary bifocals
And see your world
See your school
See your students
For who and what they really are.
