Math is fundamental. This observation is a groan-inducing clich茅, but it鈥檚 also true. Math matters for employment, financial literacy, and even for navigating evidentiary claims about things like COVID and climate change. Yet math education seems to have gotten sidelined amid broader debates about school culture, civics, and the rest. Lately, when math does come up, it seems like it鈥檚 due to efforts to accelerated offerings or the requirement that students answer questions correctly. And, of course, this is all against the backdrop of the devastating in math performance.
If you鈥檙e concerned about this, where can you turn? Well, one place is a recently published book from the inimitable Barry Garelick, a second-career math teacher with a chip on his shoulder and a deep affinity for Mary Dolciani鈥檚 classic 1962 math textbook Modern Algebra. Garelick, who readers likely already know from his various books and articles (in fact, he penned one of the more popular RHSU guest letters last year), has delivered a work that鈥檚 filled with bracing, laugh-out-loud takes on math education and the teacher鈥檚 lot. is delightfully pithy (clocking in at a slender 94 pages) and filled with short chapters that bear titles like 鈥淭he Prospect of a Horrible PD, a Horrible Meeting, and an Unlikely Collaboration.鈥�
Throughout the volume, Garelick shares stories from his own experience that capture the state of math education and illuminate the frustrations of teaching math today. In one anecdote, Garelick recalls the PD trainer who excitedly shared that students would be able to get credit on the test for offering a satisfactory explanation, even if they had the wrong answers. That posed a challenge, she cautioned: 鈥淓xplaining answers is tough for students and for this reason there is a need for discourse in the classroom and 鈥榬ich tasks.鈥欌��
When Garelick asked what constituted a 鈥渞ich task,鈥� she said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 a problem that has multiple entry points and has various levels of cognitive demands. Every student can be successful on at least part of it.鈥�
I quite like Garelick鈥檚 take on that indecipherable response: 鈥淗er answer was extraordinary in its eloquence at saying absolutely nothing.鈥� I routinely hear from teachers and administrators who really, really wish they were free to say things like that in the course of staff meetings or professional training sessions.
This is the rare text in which an educator calls out the patronizing air of so many reformers and trainers. Recalling one conference where the moderator urged teachers to name their 鈥渟uper power,鈥� Garelick drily asks the reader, 鈥淲hy is so much PD steeped with the vocabulary that has teachers being 鈥榬ock stars鈥� or 鈥榮uper heroes鈥�?鈥�
Garelick is stubbornly, even proudly, traditionalist in his takes. His approach to teaching negative numbers perfectly encapsulates his approach. He says, bluntly, 鈥淚 do not like to prolong the topic.鈥� He elaborates, 鈥淚 once observed a teacher taking three weeks to teach it. The students had it down fairly well when the teacher introduced a new explanation using colored circles, causing confusion.鈥�
Exasperated, one girl asked, 鈥榃hy are we doing this?鈥欌�� The teacher explained that, since the students had learned how negative numbers work, it was time to understand why they work that way.
Garelick recounts the student鈥檚 plaintive response: 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want to understand!鈥�
Garelick may be the only math author willing to publicly state that he thinks the student has a point. No fan of the Common Core or the broader push for conceptual math, he instead argues, 鈥淚鈥檝e found that a lot of the confusion with the addition and subtraction of negative integers comes from giving students more techniques and pictorials than are really needed.鈥�
At one point, he describes guiltily confessing to his supervisor that he鈥檇 attended a workshop session on the role of memory. She tells him, 鈥淢emorization is not a good thing.鈥� She then asks, with some concern, 鈥淲as this person advocating it?鈥� Throughout the book, one is frequently reminded just how much teachers who believe in phonics, math procedure, or memorization can feel like they鈥檙e moles struggling to escape persecution.
Garelick鈥檚 book is full of the kinds of things that teachers say privately but hesitate to speak aloud. Whatever side you鈥檙e prone to take in the math wars, Garelick鈥檚 wry reflections are well worth checking out.
