Exit Slip: The "Formatting Power" of Math

In helping raise new generations of young people: 

• how to do well (for themselves) and how to do good (in the world) 
• how to support students and ourselves with the anxieties of our times 
• how to avoid chasing the "hot issue of the day"

Our group discussed how global issues such as global warming is so broad and intimidating to think about that students and people in general aren't able to know where to start or if their efforts can even make an impact. However, if we narrowed the scope to students' own communities, it would make the tasks less daunting. For example, when one teacher in the Barwell reading had students research and make suggestions for solutions to an incident in their community and their work was actually acted upon, it shows students that their efforts can have a positive impact on the world around them. This in turn would motivate students to realize and think more about how their actions affect the world around them, and hopefully strive to make a positive change. 

Another question our group brought up was where to draw the line when wanting to support students and their issues? What are we as teachers able to help students with, and what topics would we have to let others (parents, counsellors, etc.) handle? I thought that this was an important question to think about given we may come to witness many things that happen in our students' lives. 

Implicit stories and assumptions of math: 

As a class, we discussed many stereotypes and assumptions people have about math. The ones I resonated and agreed with the most were how many people assume "math is hard / math is for smart people" and that math is about memorizing things / there is some set method and solution to a problem. As someone with a math major, people assume we're "good" at math, but there's so many fields of mathematics and people are stronger and weaker in different areas. One person might love discrete math but struggle with geometry, and someone else vice versa. Then who here is "good" at math? I think it's these assumptions we make about ourselves and our own abilities (being "good" at math or not) that limits our thinking and ability to grow and improve.