I’ve been a math teacher long enough to have lost count of the number of times someone has told me, “I’m bad at math.” Early on, I was shocked by the confessions and caught off-guard by the strength of the conviction with which these words
It’s spring of 2021 and schools across the world are wrestling with the challenges of bringing students back to physical classrooms full time, all with the doomsday drumbeat of student ‘learning loss’ and a push to ‘double-down’ on addressing the achievement gap through a mandated summer school. This is a continuation of the ‘threat and rigidity response’ to
How do we help students to believe in themselves--to believe they can master complex content, and that effort determines their academic success? If they are behind academically, it’s not because there is something wrong with their brains or their “ability” is deficient. I will mention malleable ability throughout this article (malleable ability means ability
In public education the achievement gap lives with us. Whether or not individuals within the enterprise accept the challenge of eliminating achievement gaps as a personal imperative, its presence remains a haunting mirror systemically. Seemingly, our concern with its stain accompanies students until graduation. However,