yayaya
I just had my last class of Developing Mathematical Ideas, which is this class I took this semester at Mount Holyoke College. Overall, the class has been a great experience, but I was kind of expecting the last class to be bullshit. However, I feel like today's session ended up reminding me of some very important things. The whole course has reshaped my ideas about math, but I wasn't fully able to articulate it until today. At the end of class, we all went around and talked about what has changed for us through taking the course, and I ended up talking about math education being political. I mean, I study education because it is political--I believe that teaching is form of activism. Although I've never really thought of math as part of that political movement. But, after taking this course I think that there IS such thing as math for social change, and even queer/feminist math (although we never directly talked about this aspect in the class). Being able to problem solve and manipulate numbers can be empowering, and that's something I want to foster in kids. I also see math as such a division between the "gifted" and non-gifted, which is so unnecessary and problematic. MATH CAN EMPOWER! MATH IS SOCIAL! MATH IS POLITICAL! MATH IS QUEER!
Mostly, it just feels good to remember why I care so much about education. I mean, of course I knooow it, but I've kind of forgotten to feeeel it. It's good to remember that I AM PART OF A MOVEMENT and it's not the personal drama movement.
I also think I know where I want to go to grad school, but I'm going to give myself about a year to think about that one.
Mostly, it just feels good to remember why I care so much about education. I mean, of course I knooow it, but I've kind of forgotten to feeeel it. It's good to remember that I AM PART OF A MOVEMENT and it's not the personal drama movement.
I also think I know where I want to go to grad school, but I'm going to give myself about a year to think about that one.