Crisis in Education: We Can No Longer Sit Back and Watch

In the August 2014 IMPACT State publication, I wrote a commentary called, “Where have all the teachers gone?” While I am not usually one to say “I told you so,” I feel like that commentary could be published again right now and it would still be very relevant.

Last week there were numerous articles about teachers leaving the profession in record numbers and fewer students enrolling in education programs. These include:

From CNN, “Teachers are leaving and few people want to join the field. Experts are sounding the alarm”

From the Wall Street Journal, “Teachers are quitting, and companies are hot to hire them”

From NPR, “More than half of teachers are looking for the exits, a poll says”

Hopefully, as citizens, we are getting the message. Teachers are burned out, they are tired, they are not appreciated, and they are not paid well. For a moment, put yourself in a teacher’s shoes or even better yet, substitute in a classroom. If you were a teacher now, would you stay in the profession?

Many of you will say that this burnout is because of the Covid-19 pandemic and while that has certainly played a role, the fact is that teachers are not respected. Well, except between March and June of 2020 when everyone was praising teachers for all of their hard work to educate our children remotely. A headline from the Washington Post says, 'Teachers deserve to make a billion dollars’ — Shonda Rhimes, plus other homeschooling parents on appreciating educators.

Yet, even then, some predicted that the appreciation and respect for teachers wouldn’t last. The Economic Policy Institute asked the question “will it give them a voice in education and their working conditions?” Looking at what teachers in South Dakota are enduring, I believe the answer to that question is NO.

In 2016, the South Dakota legislature passed a bill that would increase our state sales tax by a half-cent to increase teacher pay in the state. This led to SD ranking 48^th in teacher pay, but that was short-lived as we are now back to being 50^th out of 51 in teacher pay.

What can we do? Here are some ideas, many of which are the same ones that I listed in 2014.

1. Respect teachers as professionals.
2. Increase teacher pay, not just the amount of money being allocated to the district.
3. Support teachers—send a thank you email, ask them how they are doing, substitute in the classroom.
4. Provide good mentoring to teachers in their first one to three years. Maybe each new teacher should have two mentors, one in their district that may or may not be in their content area and one outside the district in their content area.
5. Give new teachers an extra preparation period during the school day during their first and second year.

This is the third school year that teachers have had to deal with the pandemic, on top of their regular workload. Except for healthcare workers, many professionals have been allowed to work remotely for their health and safety. We have put teachers in the direct line of fire by not mandating masks in classrooms and giving up on contact tracing.

I just returned from the South Dakota STEM Education Conference, which is co-hosted by the South Dakota Council of Mathematics and the South Dakota Science Teachers Association. The conference was last held in February 2020. Every time I attend this conference I am always inspired by the many excellent math and science teachers in South Dakota. During Saturday's lunch, teachers who plan to retire this year were asked to stand up—everyone looked around the room with worried faces and miraculously no one stood.

There is a crisis in our state and our nation in education. Contact your representatives, substitute in a classroom, run for school board, etc. None of us can afford to sit back and watch because education is the future of our country and that future requires good teachers.

A New Normal

 

Before the fall semester began, I was very apprehensive about how it would go. I was worried about contracting COVID-19 and how that would affect my family. I was dreading wearing a mask, having to use a microphone to teach, and having a video camera in the room. I figured that we would be online within 3 weeks of starting the semester so why bother starting in person.

Today is the end of 5.5 weeks, and my classes are still meeting in person. Despite all of my fears, the semester is going well. I love being back in the classroom—there is nothing better than engaging with students in person. My students are learning a lot and are working hard, both at school and at staying safe by wearing a mask.

No, this semester is not the same as last fall because students aren’t studying in the building, hanging out in the Math Education Library, and faculty’s office doors are shut. But it is wonderful to be back on campus, to see my students in person, and to be in the classroom teaching. I have gotten used to the classroom technology and it seems to be working well for my students.

As the number of COVID cases rises dramatically in my state, I still feel safe going to work. More importantly, I look forward to going to work to see my students and to help them learn more mathematics. Fall 2020 is definitely a unique semester, but it has been a great one so far.

Silent No More

I have watched the events of the last week unfold and I have been silent; as a white privileged female what can I possibly say? I will never understand what BIPOC endure on a daily basis. However, I am very empathetic and after today’s actions, I can no longer be silent.

I am a teacher educator so my job is to prepare math teachers for their future classrooms. So I MUST speak up to set an example for my students. We all need to stand up for what is right, which is something that I have always done, even when it wasn’t popular. You can ask some of my siblings about that.

And while we are supporting #BlackLivesMatter, COVID-19 is killing thousands of Americans every day. In fact, these two things are tied together because COVID-19 affects BIPOC more than white citizens. Both the pandemic and the blatant racism have been fueled by an incompetent leader. The fact that he went into a bunker and shut the lights off at the White House tells us that he is not the leader that we need right now. In fact, he makes things worse every day and it needs to stop. I am pleading with all of you to contact your members of Congress and ask them to use the 25^th Amendment.

Even though the calendar says that it is 2020, I feel like our country has regressed 50 to 60 years. In my opinion, this regression has been caused by our current president. He has gotten away with being racist so some of our citizens think that this behavior is okay. It is NOT okay. Everyone in our country deserves to be treated fairly and justly.

I fear for the future of our country, for my BIPOC family and friends. We cannot stand by and let our country be ruined—we must stand up peacefully and take back America.

After Week 1 of Teaching Online

So my students and I have survived the first week of online classes. Some takeaways from this week are:

• Zoom is a great platform for synchronous classes and is easy for class discussions if you have less than 15 students.
• The breakout rooms feature on Zoom is great, but pre-assigning students to rooms hasn’t worked well for me yet. Some students ended up in the correct room, but I had to manually place most of the students in the correct room. It is still a great way for them to have small group discussion.
• Time seems to go faster than expected. In my 2-hour class on Tuesday, I intended to have discussion for the first hour and then give them an assignment for the second hour. We ended up talking the entire time. I definitely need to change that this coming week as many of my students have class from 8 to 12:15 that day and all classes were synchronous!
• In History of Math, I wanted to use COVID-19 as part of our conversation so we did a problem on Monday, where I asked them if every person in South Dakota could have a circle of radius 2 meters around them without the circles overlapping. And, we do have enough room for that—even extra to invite some friends.
• Then I asked the History of Math students to post on the Discussion Board their thoughts on what impact they believe Covid-19 will have on the History of Mathematics. It was an interesting discussion and I appreciated reading their perspectives.
• In our Assessment course, we had our annual Homework Debate, where we assign students to be either Pro Homework or Con Homework. Then they have to argue their side. They did a great job, but it wasn’t as fun as it would have been in person. We were all in agreement that there needs to be some middle ground in homework so they are writing their homework philosophies and homework policies for homework this week.

One question that I have consistently asked my students every class is “how are you doing?” They seem to be doing well, but some of them feel a bit overwhelmed by all of the homework and coursework this week. I am not sure that university faculty understand that we cannot possibly cover the same material as we had originally planned this semester. This is leaving the students tired, overwhelmed, and anxious. I was talking with a middle school teacher and she said that her administrator told them to “take what we were planning and cut it in half, and then cut it in half and assign that.”

How does one tell a colleague that perhaps you are expecting too much of your students without upsetting them?

The Assignment That Keeps on Giving

Every fall I teach the Geometry for Teachers course at South Dakota State University.  It is the first math content/pedagogy course that our Mathematics with Teaching Specialization majors take. So I find this class especially important because I am starting to build their foundation as a mathematics teacher. Dr. Christine Larson, my awesome colleague, loves that “I get to break them in first.”

The first assignment in the course every fall is a journal entry, where they are to answer the question: Why do you want to be a math teacher? I love lots of assignments in my geometry course, but this is my favorite for two reasons:

• I get to know the students better; and
• They always give me hope.

This semester was no different. First of all, I was really impressed that they all had their assignments submitted by 11:30 when they weren’t due until 1:30. Second of all, I am impressed with these students as people. From this journal entry, I can tell that they are kind, generous, thoughtful and caring. The main reasons that they say they want to be math teachers are: making an impact on students’ lives, having had teachers who influenced them, and sharing their passion and love for mathematics.

Every fall after reading this assignment, I get renewed with hope because we have some really awesome future math teachers. They see the importance of teaching, value what teachers do despite the fact that the pay is poor, and pursue this career despite their family’s opposition.

It helps me realize the importance of my job as a math teacher educator and it makes me so proud of them. While I know some of the students in this class as they are my advisees or I have had them in other classes, I don’t know all of them well. However, I am looking forward to another great fall semester in the geometry for teachers course with these intelligent, thoughtful young adults!

Highlights of the Kansas City NCTM Regional Conference

I am behind on my grading, but I feel that right now I need to reflect on the NCTM Regional conference in Kansas City.

First of all, if you are a Mathematics Teacher Educator, I highly recommend that you take your preservice teachers to an NCTM regional or state conference.  These conferences are a great place to get your students engaged in the culture of becoming a great mathematics teacher. I am not downplaying the idea of taking them to the national conference, but I think that they might be overwhelmed by the size. State and regional conferences are smaller and allow for more interpersonal interaction. 

For me, one of the best parts of this trip was the conversations in the minivan to/from the conference.  Sometimes they were about math and sometimes they were not, but these students bonded with each other in a way that cannot be done elsewhere.  If you really want to get to know someone, you take a road trip with them!

Some of the highlights of the conference:

• Presenting with my wonderful colleague and friend, Dr. Chris Larson.  Our presentations were well attended and our students heard some reviews of the one on Inverse Functions.  They overheard some teachers talking about this great session on inverse functions they attended so the students asked them what time the session was—sure enough it was our session.  The best part was that our students said to these teachers, “those are our professors!”
• Observing and listening to our @SDState preservice math teachers as they absorb lots of information, get excited about free manipulatives, and most importantly, start their journey in their profession.  I always brag that we have the best math certification program at @SDState, but more importantly, we have the best students!  They are what make our program great.
• Meeting people from #MTBoS that I have followed for years on Twitter in person, Justin Aion, Annie Forest, John Golden, and Heather Kohn! And meeting new people in #MTBoS, Joel Bezaire, Will Gunn, Pam Harris, and Cindy Johnson. This group has changed my life as an educator.  I keep trying to convince my students of the importance of connecting with fellow math educators on Twitter—I think the conference may have helped those students understand what I mean.
• Seeing the interview that NCTM did with my amazing colleague, Dr. Larson.  She knocked the interview out of the park.  Check it out at https://twitter.com/NCTM/status/1058412868612186112
• Growing as an educator. Educators have so many wonderful ideas and listening to them share what they do in their classroom makes me better at my job.  I always tell my students, “if you think that you are done growing as a teacher, then you should probably retire.” As a teacher, you should always be learning new things.

Thanks to the KC NCTM Regional committee for accepting our presentations and thanks to my students for attending the conference with me and making me think about what I can do to become a better math teacher educator.

Am I convincing my preservice teachers of the power of Twitter?

I am doing a study with Dr. Christopher Parrish from the University of South Alabama on the use of the #MTBoS community with preservice teachers.  So, I asked my students to get a Twitter account if they didn’t already have one and they have had a couple of assignments with Twitter.  The first one was to follow 10 math people on Twitter and share why they chose to follow them.  The second one was to observe a Twitter Chat.  I didn’t want to force them to participate in one as I felt it would be too intimidating.  However, I thought following along with one would expose them to what a Twitter chat was like, without the pressure of participation.

Throughout this semester, I have sensed the skepticism of my students of Twitter being helpful to them as a future teacher.  However, after they completed their reflections on the Twitter chat, I feel hopeful that they may actually see the potential of Twitter.  Here are some comments from their reflections that stood out to me:

I think it is unique, fun, and interesting that teachers from all over the country hop onto Twitter and chat together! I think that it would be fun to answer questions about this, but more fun to debate with people on why they answered the topic question. I like debating. Don’t get this mixed up with arguing. I like seeing different sides. I would consider myself an easy-going, open minded individual. I think that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and that is what I think the

beauty is in Twitter.

I love that the ED chat is based off of a hashtag so that I can look back at some of these teaching techniques after the chat is over and take notes on what I want to use in the future for my own classroom. Also, following along with an ED chat really opened my eyes to how useful twitter can be to me in my own classroom. We had so many chats to choose from for this assignment and it has helped me realize that I constantly can ask for help from the many math teachers in the world of Twitter.

I had no idea things like this existed; and I think they are such a beneficial way to learn about topics you might not know much about.  You can also see what opinions other teachers have out there.  Lastly, I think it is a great way to share resources one might have found and has found useful.  Twitter chats are really beneficial, and in the future I definitely would like to read more.

My first and biggest reflection was that I am completely overwhelmed by it. I did choose one of the more popular chats so I assume this would be subject to change based on the chat. My next emotion that comes to my mind is surprise. I was honestly surprised at the participation level across the nation. This brings me to my final emotion, happiness. Knowing that there are so many resources out there that are willing to be shared by so many is such a great resource for me as a future teacher.

But the best part of this week was that two of my students actually tweeted at me and included the class hashtag, #Math261. These tweets are below.