I was thinking…about humanity

I have been home from San Antonio for three days now and I can’t stop thinking about the talk of humanity and humane-ness that I heard from speakers.

I first felt humanity creeping into the conversation about mathematics while sitting in #Shadowcon17 listening to geoffkrall (minute 52:00) talk about mathematical anthropology. Defined as ” what makes us human,” anthropology is commonly the study of long-dead civilizations, relying only on the artifacts that are left behind. In a sense, other artifacts left behind in Geoff’s model of anthropology are worksheets, percentage grades, and grades derived from an arithmetic mean, where you never free yourself from the burden of an early bad grade. But Geoff asks us to focus on artifacts that are contained in the portfolio-like folder that he visited with Cassandra, the high school sophomore who shared her mathematical journey with him. I can come up with a thousand reasons to keep all of those other artifacts, but Geoff made the case that each of those misses the humanity of students.

After Geoff spoke I was better prepared to understand the relevance of Cathy Yenca’s talk about Students Who Hide (minute 0:00). Captured well by @MrsKemper‘s sketches, Cathy  describes the new (and not new) teachers’ feelings about students’ questions about mathematics. Indifferent? Insulted? Inspired? Where are you? I remember making the journey from indifferent to insulted and finally to inspired by students’ questions and all the difference it made in my own practice. Although I admit that questions about attendance, homework, due dates, and schedules still irritate me (Is that another I ?).  To admit that students can insult you or that they can inspire you with their questions about mathematics is to make mathematics human.

aganguly26 shared her realization that teachers of other subjects more often have the opportunity to learn about their students’ values through the content they teach: they learn about their students’ humanity. Why don’t mathematics teachers have the same opportunity? Where is the mathematical heart – the explicit effort to humanize math. Where has this been all along?

Humanizing mathematics …

I have books on my shelf that hint at this idea. Mathematics are People, Too; A Place for Zero; Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking; Designing Tessellations: The Secrets of Interlocking Patterns. But aganguly26 goes farther. The mathematical heart captures the democratization of mathematics, students’ empowerment to be human and to make and to explore conjectures of their own. Just like books can take you on a self-directed journey, mathematics can also create a sense of agency.  kassiaowedekind (minute 37:00) suggests that this agency can be found in math play.

Play.

Bears play. Puppies play. Children play. And mathematicians play. What can be more human than that, @kassiaowedekind? Perhaps all of the connections that we struggle to make between mathematics and the arts, literature, and other human endeavors is the result of the desire to humanize mathematics, to reclaim it from its solitary existence in the intellectual field.

Finally I reviewed the storification of the NCSM Ignite session to see if I could find more examples that express the importance of humanity in mathematics and to see a more humane approach to learning and teaching emerge. Consider the humanity in these talks, this time in tweets.

How much white space on the page do you give for student thinking? bstockus MathEdLeaders #NCSM17

CindyCliche1 children with early math skills overcome problems more easily. Good news: children are natural problem solvers #NCSM17

We can’t assume that “mathematically proficient students” means “mathematically perfect students.” MrsNewell22 #NCSM17 pic.twitter.com/p8gg7uzR1v

Precise claims can be expressed in imperfect language . (Moschovitz) MrsNewell22 MathEdLeaders #NCSM17

All means All for teachers too – building trust to inspire professional learning with srendon2 at #NCSM17 #ignite 🔥 pic.twitter.com/twmCuw1VZY

None of that mattered. he saw a living being who could do mathematics. #ncsm17 TLAMath

Math is the most guilty of telling children their ideas are not worthwhile MFAnnie #NCSM17

Isn’t that the work we want in the classroom? Children listening to each other MFAnnie #NCSM17

Do whatever the hell you want in class…but listen to your student’s ideas. @MFAnnie #NCSM17