September 16, 2025 • 42 mins
What does it mean to build authentic trust in educational settings? How do we create working agreements that evolve with changing circumstances rather than remaining static? These questions form the heart of this deeply reflective conversation about leadership, classroom dynamics, and the complex relationships that underpin effective education.
Beginning with a playful discussion about Collect Rocks Day, Joel and Misty explore how their fascination with collecting connects to building memories and relationships. This seemingly simple topic evolves into a profound metaphor for how we accumulate experiences that form the foundation of trust in our professional lives.
For new leaders, establishing trust requires consistency and transparency over time. As Rafael insightfully notes, "You don't trust people, you trust their habits." This perspective highlights that meaningful trust emerges not from singular actions but from patterns of behavior demonstrated consistently across situations.
The conversation examines how working agreements function across different educational contexts. Rather than treating classroom norms as immutable laws, we consider how to build agreements that can be revisited and revised as circumstances change. This approach not only creates more responsive learning environments but also teaches students valuable lessons about democratic processes.
Joel, Misty, and Rafael share their experiences with CPM's mathematics curriculum, which fundamentally redistributes power in the classroom by positioning students as capable mathematical thinkers who can engage with concepts independently. This shift requires building trust on multiple levels – teachers trusting students to take ownership of their learning, and students trusting that this collaborative approach will benefit them in the long run.
What emerges most powerfully from this discussion is the recognition that authenticity forms the bedrock of effective education. Whether in curriculum development, classroom management, or leadership transitions, genuine belief in what we're doing resonates with others and creates the conditions for trust to flourish.
Then we have two new installments of our Join Them on Their Journey from two Academy of Best Practices participants. Jessie and Chi talk about how they've started the year and we appreciate them sharing their enthusiasm and dedication now and throughout this upcoming year.
How are you building trust in your educational setting? We'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments or on social media.
Send Joel and Misty a message!
The More Math for More People Podcast is produced by CPM Educational Program.
Learn more at CPM.org
X: @cpmmath
Facebook: CPMEducationalProgram
Email: cpmpodcast@cpm.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
You are listening to the More Math for More People
podcast.
An outreach of CPM educationalprogram Boom.
An outreach of CPM EducationalProgram Boom.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
All right, it is the 16th of September already.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Do you remember?
No, that's 21st.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
This is the 16th.
This is the 16th, yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Wow, that's good.
That's a good throwback, thoughthe earth is the 16th.
Yeah, sorry.
Wow, that's good, that's a goodthrowback, though the earth,
wind and fire.
Yeah yeah, the year's almostover.
Oh my gosh, like we're in thelast.
We're almost in the lastquarter of the year.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I wonder if that's could you think of it
pessimistically oroptimistically that this is the
last of the year, like it feelsdefinite, like the last of the
year, like when you said it itfelt pessimistic to me but
optimistically we're in the fall.
I see we're in a new season, anew beginning.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I think it's more just as I get older, the passing
of time that feels like it goesso much more quickly.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Oh my gosh yes.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
It just like.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I'm like no, I don't really want time to go more
quickly, right now?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
No, I don't.
Sometimes, most of the time Idon't.
All right, so it's the 16th ofSeptember though it sure is so
what is our national day today,joel?
It is Collect Rocks Day.
Oh, I like rocks.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I do too.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Collect rocks day.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Yeah, what yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
When I feel like, well, when I was a kid I we
would go to the beach and Iwould come home with like all
kinds of things.
I was always just picking upstuff, put it in my pockets and
I'd bring them home Bottle caps.
And they didn't always oh nolike rocks and sand, dollars and
other small things that didn'talways smell so great when they
(02:05):
got home, because no, thatseawater, sand embedded in those
rocks is not.
Yeah, or in the formerly livingthings, or I would pick up all
these rocks because they looksuper cool, but then when they
dry they don't look as cool.
They look cool when they arewet and you can see all the
(02:25):
shiny coolness of them, but I Ido like rocks.
I think in some other versionof my life I'm a geologist of
some kind.
I think that's true.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I wonder if the one that learned about geology
before they were 25 but I justthinking are we all geologists,
maybe at different phases in ourlife Well in the multiverse,
everyone in some version of themultiverse is a geologist.
So this will be a three-partepisode of the multiverse.
(02:59):
Well, okay, but we're reallytalking about collecting rocks.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yes, we are yeah, I have to.
I have to, like now, beintentional about my collection
of rocks how are you?
Intentional more in that I like, I, I really I'm more into like
collecting, like particularrocks and stones and crystals,
and things now and and I like toknow why I have that rock.
(03:28):
That's kind of my intention.
If I get to the place where I'mlike I don't even know what all
these rocks are, then I havetoo many rocks, yeah, or stones,
or crystals, or do you want tocall them, but so it's.
It's kind of like keeping trackand knowing what.
What is the representationalnature?
Of this object that I have.
That's kind of my intention.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
I think that's true for me too.
If I collect a rock, it'sbecause it's attached to a
memory.
So it's not really a geologicalthing, but as a junior ranger,
we're taught that you don't takea rock from a place.
You leave it where it is.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
You appreciate it in that space.
If everyone took a rock, therewouldn't be any rocks left for
anyone else, as my grandmotheralways told me which I never
really believed.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Well, it's true.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
True-ish?
Okay, there would still be morerocks, and they're still there.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yes, and they wouldn't be as many for people.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
They'd just be in different locations.
Yes, but I do attach them tomemories and I just I find
geology fascinating because ofthe.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
It just tells a story to me Of the earth, yeah, of
what happened here at some pointWeird.
I also like to collect or bringhome rocks that look like
hearts, like that's.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
I do too.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, so that would be the other.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, another collection.
I didn't know that about you.
Just, I do that too Nice.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, so it's not, it's, it's national collect
rocks day.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Collect rocks day.
Yeah, so it's National CollectRocks Day, collect Rocks Day.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
So what are the suggested activities other than
taking rocks from national parks?
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Don't do it, Just don't do it.
You could visit a naturalhistory museum.
Oh.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I love natural history museums.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I do too.
You could get creative anddisplay your rocks maybe paint
your rocks.
I've done that before.
Let's see.
Those are kind of suggestions.
I'm trying to think of what Iwould do?
What are you going to do?
I think that I would maybe lookat my rock collections yeah,
(05:43):
and by collections I don't keepthem in one space, I have them
kind of all over.
But I mean, and rocks, there'smoon rocks, there's all sorts of
types of rocks.
So it's my mind's kind of likethinking how can I celebrate
that too?
How would you celebrate?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I think, like similarly, I think you know, I
like I want to look through therocks that I have and why I have
them.
I might even go collect somemore rocks, which might mean buy
some more rocks.
But I might collect some morerocks, we'll see, yeah, rocks,
we'll see, yeah, no, I I think Ithink there's something really
(06:25):
just particular kinds of rockshave like particular just
feeling to them, right likethey're just pretty, but they
also have like sense to them.
I just I think that there'sthink there's a good reason
we're enamored of rocks I agreewith that and I like also that
like some rocks look really coolwhen they're all like polished
(06:47):
up and shiny.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
I have a rock polisher and other rocks are
really cool when they're justrough right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
They're just craggy or whatever.
You have a rock polisher, Ihave a rock polisher Dude.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
That's pretty cool.
So to celebrate you could sendme some of your rocks and I
could polish.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
There you go, I'm gonna send you some rocks to
polish for me and then next timeI see you in person, yeah, I'll
get them back, yeah sweet.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Well, it's nash, not whatever it's collect rocks
collect rocks or not collectrocks, let's just all do it.
Let's just all do it, yeahthere you go, go out and collect
some rocks.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
Give me sound with your editing.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, we can edit all the sound.
I have a lot of trust.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
After one time I have a lot of trust with you guys.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So we don't know what we're going to talk about today
.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
No, I have a lot of things running through my mind.
How about if I start there?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, that sounds great, I'd love to hear them.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Let's see what's doing that.
You know, running a back burneris the latest horrific incident
in Minneapolis.
I mean, you know, I don't wantto like be one of the people
that claims the space justbecause we're going there.
And yet we're going there,we're going, for you know we're
(08:19):
anticipating team building andpositivity and connection and
we'll be entering a space that Isuspect will still be reeling.
You know from sure what happenedwell and we have many team
members who live in the areathat's right and you know that
was the gist of my post.
I didn't want it to go withoutpath.
As head of school over twoschools, I found myself
(08:43):
sometimes it felt like I wasoverposting, Like there were so
many situations that we shouldbe attentive to that we should
be marking as problematic,beyond problematic, you know.
And that post I put in Slacktoday was this commitment like
(09:03):
let's not make it normal, right,let's not ever normalize it in
a way that it goes without beingmentioned or noted or what have
you.
So that was my intent.
I can actually think of placesevents that we were having
across different parts of thecountry that I was participating
(09:24):
in that were impacted by thesehorrible acts and I think, as
teachers and educators aneducational company we have a
viewpoint.
You know it's horrific for allpeople, period.
Educators have this likedifferent window into what that
(09:46):
looks like.
It feels like right.
Any educator who's been throughany kind of intruder practice,
whether it's with children, godforbid.
I mean, I tried to keepchildren, especially little ones
, out of that.
But with or without it's it, itmarks you forever, like you
know, and then when you seesomething happen it it really
(10:09):
drives home how frustrating andpowerless this whole situation
is yeah, for sure, for sure,yeah if there's, I I don't even
know what kind of response tomake to that.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
There isn't.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
There's no appropriate words right now.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Right.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
You said the unique role of education in things too.
I feel like it's unique in thatwe are connected to people's
families and we're connected todifferent aspects of people's
lives as teachers in differentways.
Like as a math educator, youkind of put the math down.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Maybe for that day and talk about something
different.
Yeah, no, kind of going back towhat we were talking about
earlier.
It's that, it's that theme.
I always go back to stop, likestop whatever you're doing, yeah
, and think about this.
Is this thing that happened?
And, and I think for teachersyou're right, joel it's this
(11:11):
notion of like we know that we,we can imagine the family right
and we don't have to reach farfor that.
So so that's been on my mind.
I, I, I would argue it's on theminds of all educators whenever
it occurs.
And, you know, not all of themmake headlines anymore, which is
another tragedy.
(11:49):
So, as a new leader, you knowone of the things you you
navigate is is developingrelationships.
So really you're not developingrelationships for the sake of
friendliness and collegiality.
I mean that's nice, that'sreally a nice byproduct, but
ultimately, you want to havesome trust in the bank on both
ends of the equation, right, sothat we can work together in the
(12:11):
future, so that we cancollaborate, so that we can go
through tough stretches ofcollaboration, right, and
disagreements and all of that.
And so that's been on my mind alot and you know I'm certainly
working on it from my end.
We've been having a lot ofconversation at the leadership
team level where you know we'redeveloping these charters that
(12:33):
will soon be very public and thecharter is not just a piece of
paper that we check off, it's anongoing one of the leadership
team members described it as anongoing non-trivial conversation
, like how do we give itnon-trivial time?
(12:55):
And I thought that was so wiseto point out, because if it is
trivial, if we're just kind ofchecking it off and we're
fitting it into 10 minutes ofthe agenda, then it's going to
be deployed in a trivial way,but we're giving it a lot of
thought and we are building theagreements of how we're going to
be with one another as leaders,as we have the conversation
(13:18):
about the charter, as leaders aswe have the conversation about
the charter.
If that makes sense.
And then you got to make itpublic because that's the
accountability piece.
Right, you don't want thesmoke-filled room, so to speak.
You know where decisions aremade.
I don't even know if that's athing anymore.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Like who's having smoke-filled rooms.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
I guess it's now a non-smoking room where secret
decisions are made, or vapingroom, I don't know.
I'm going.
The analogy metaphor is losingits credibility when these
decisions go.
This is where these decisionsgo and what's the cycle of
(14:01):
accountability, transparency andalso revision, Like I love that
our charter currently has it.
Every six months, we're goingto revisit our charter.
We're going to think okay, isthis still working?
Have times changed?
Are we in a different situation?
Did a thing happen?
Like I would argue that if athing happened, right, you
(14:24):
should go to the charter for aminute and say, okay, can we
actually operate this way?
Because we've just entered, youknow concrete example, a
pandemic.
I wonder how many of us reallystopped and said, all right, we
got to respond, but, like, howdoes this impact our working
(14:44):
agreement?
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Right, right Right.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Well, and it's so interesting, that whole the
crafting of agreements, right,working agreements are so
interesting to me because wewant to start with well, what
are our working agreements?
Right, here we have this newteam, this new class, whatever.
Right, like I'm in my class,I'm like, okay, great, we're
going to have some workingagreements, what are our class
agreements?
But we haven't done anything yetwe might have some ideas of
(15:09):
what we want, but until we startliving them, then we know if
they fit or not.
Like we might go, oh, we wantthis and that and the other
thing, whatever.
We might, you know, say somethings.
And oh, we want this and thatand the other thing, whatever.
We might say some things, butthen as we start with, well,
actually we want this to be alittle different, or this isn't
working as well, and thatability then to say I want to
(15:29):
shift the agreements and how,like, if there isn't a way of,
it's not a grievance, but ifthere isn't some way of being
able to do that, then you kindof get stuck in this.
Well, I agreed to a thing andnow I'm trying to do a thing
that doesn't feel right for me,right?
So I like what you're talkingabout, with the like thinking
about it, sort of living it asyou're doing it, having a
(15:54):
revision, the timeframe like atimeframe in mind where we're
going to revisit it, so that'snot just a.
Well, I have to wait until itgets really uncomfortable before
I say something.
Right, because I know I'm, Iknow I'm disrupting by saying
something I I love thatconnection to the classroom.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
You know I'm sure we've all had those agreements.
Call it what you will right atsome point I think we call them
norms and those became that wordand that approach became, I
think, problematic.
But yeah, it's also interestingin the classroom let's focus
there how quickly the agreement,whatever you call it, the
(16:33):
agreement becomes like the lawand you know we forget, like
constitutional amendments, andyou know changing circumstances
and I sometimes wonder if we'veactually missed an opportunity
to teach a bigger lesson.
(16:54):
Right, like, okay, these areagreements and, yes, they're
going to be revisited.
They're going to be revised andnot like in your next grade.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
The next time you have a new class, Like next time
you're like yep, sorry.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
You know we agreed to that in September.
And that's the way it's goingto be.
I think a more valuable lessonis to show both the value and
power of working agreement, aswell as how you revisit right
and I think in a cpm classroomwhere in in my mind we, we are
(17:28):
about redistributing power,authority, positionality, the
relationship with mathematics inthe in the classroom like to me
that was with mathematics inthe classroom.
Like to me, that was back in the90s and I think it still is.
So we're not just reconfiguringthe physical classroom, we're
saying to kids hey, you have thepower to engage with
(17:51):
mathematics without me.
Wow, like I'll be over here.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
That's right, and I think that You're going to have
to do something while I'm notthere.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
You have to do something while I'm not there,
and I would argue that CPMworking agreements are just a
huge opportunity to do exactlywhat we're talking about Right
To think about revision andchange and student poison and
student poison.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Well, I mean, we're touching on all the points of
real life, but a student mightgo through seven different
agreements in a day, right fromclass to class to class.
We go through differentagreements, maybe in a different
group that we're doing likeMisty said, or the whole school
has some agreements of how weinteract with each other.
So as much as a student canfeel like they have that power,
(18:42):
have that voice, I think onlybenefits them, while I run
anyway.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
Yeah, no, that's really interesting.
That's a great reminder, joel.
Right, like they're actuallyhaving to navigate, like it's
almost like they need a passport, right?
Oh, I'm in Mr Jones' class, so,like the law here is different,
you know.
I was at a school that, in itsfounding years, developed a
(19:10):
constitution and a Bill ofRights for the entire school
right and it was.
I mean, it was cool because, ofcourse, the first class got to
sign you know the documents andthey remained enshrined on the
wall.
I don't recall any amendments.
To be frank, it was a prettybroadly drafted document.
(19:37):
I remember it included theright to a class pet which, as
the subsequent head of school, II raised my fist to the creator
of that right but.
But my point is that that it wasreferenced like all kidding
aside, there were some reallygood items on there that could
(19:59):
be referenced across theexperience, like hey, remember,
we say that we have a right to,and then it opens up the
conversation to.
You know, with great powercomes great responsibility, and
with right, the history socialstudies teacher just used it as
a great vehicle.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Sure, oh man, teacher just used it as a great vehicle
.
Oh, I'm sure, yeah, sure, ohman, I didn't.
And I think about, like when wewould start our class
agreements at the beginning ofthe year.
And it's been all this timethat back in the day, I always
had like in mind, like okay,here's how we're gonna like
summarize them anyway, like tomake it simple and
straightforward.
Yeah, yeah, so many pieces, butI want to think about that trust
piece too.
You were talking about trust,and I think trust is such an
(20:47):
interesting thing, right,because it's really easy to well
, it's really easy to breaktrust.
It's very hard to reestablishtrust, right?
I remember I raised middle, I'draised teenagers right and well
.
Once you've broken the trust,it's really.
You can't just like do it rightonce and now trust is back
right.
So that how to build trustagain before you've like you're
(21:10):
talking about like I've justarrived into this position and
the things that I'm buildingtrust, but like I have, I have
done very little yet.
I mean you've, you've done alot.
I'm saying you haven't, but youhave like.
Trust is something that's builtover time as much as anything,
right, it's consistency overtime.
And so trying to like you haveto like almost figuring out like
what's the trajectory of myconsistency that I'm then going
(21:32):
to maintain right, what's thesustainable interaction that I
can that I can do, so that I'mnot like doing a whole bunch a
whole bunch that I can't thenmaintain, which then loses that
trust.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
Yeah right, yeah, no, I I really love that framing
and and the truth is, a newleader hasn't done a lot like,
yeah, you can do a lot, but isthat body of work really
connected to trust building?
Like, are, like, are they trustbuilding worthy activities?
And some of the activities youhave to do you just have to do
for continuity, for passing thebaton, but it's when you start
getting into decision making andcommitting to something and
(22:13):
sometimes you have to react tonew data Like it's this notion
of you know, I've never beenthat leader who's like, well,
once I make a decision, I haveto go back to what we were just
talking about.
Like it's a forever right,forever, or I'll be perceived as
a weak leader.
Like I feel like that also is aI hope is is a declining model
(22:36):
of leadership.
I think leadership is aboutmaking the best decision moment
with it, with the data you have,and then you have to be
vulnerable and share with folks.
Hey, like, actually, at thetime, I think that was a decent
decision.
Now, same theme.
You're like things have changed, we have new data, what have
you?
I really have loved thecharacterization that I heard
(22:59):
from a colleague years ago thatyou don't trust people, you
trust their habit, right that?
Ultimately, like we, we fallinto a lot.
But, joe, you know.
Susie I trust her with you knowmy life Right.
And then, if you, if you kindof go deeper, what you typically
(23:21):
find is a long-termrelationship where that trust
has been built through habits,right, Showing up, proving to be
transparent, proving to beconfidential.
It applies to kids in middleschool and beyond who are
developing friendships.
But that's always spoken to meand I really keep that in mind.
(23:43):
You have to have a body of work.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
And so it goes to agreements.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
I mean trust and agreements sort of go hand in
hand.
Often it's the agreements youbreak because you had no body of
work.
Hang them on, that break oftrust.
And then you have to be presentwork to hang them on.
That breaks the trust.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
And then you have to be present too to receive the
opportunity to be there.
It's not just going to happen.
You mentioned you're not goingto manufacture something or
anything like that.
It's got to be in that moment,like you said.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah, like trust is something that is.
I have trust because of what'shappened.
It's a past right, it's a, it'sa reliance on that.
The past will continue into thefuture, and so like to be able
to think about, oh, how do I?
And then?
And then, if there is enoughpast right and there's bobbles
because there's always noiseright In the pattern then I can
(24:38):
trust it's oh, it's just aninconsistency, as opposed to oh
no, that's how this person isright, because we'll all drop
the ball at some point,different things.
We won't do it all perfectlyall the time, and so that
history is what allows us tobuild that.
But how to get to that is sucha challenge and I think we face
that in our classrooms.
(24:59):
We face it when we're workingwith teachers.
Right, we come into a classroomwith someone implementing and
want them to trust us, to givethem feedback and to be
compassionate and all thesepieces, but they don't know us
at all, necessarily any reasonto have that until we can like
(25:20):
to.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
So we're always in that position of trying to build
it right, trying to buildrapport and connection and a
relationship that is trustthat's so interesting because I
I think our longer termcommitment, commitment we want
to develop and grow more andmore every day, is part of the
(25:41):
success of CPM.
Right Like, like we don't justshow up one day with a teacher
box, right Like no offense, theteacher boxes.
But what I have seen from my ownexperience is that, like some
folks are really good at sort ofengendering trust in that
moment for that session with theteacher box and you're excited
(26:03):
and new, but then it's almostlike if it doesn't work out, you
feel really betrayed by the forthe box, the box and the box
person because you like, likeit's, that's how we are, like
we're excited about new thingsas a profession, I believe, and
we want to do right by students.
(26:24):
We want to do better in theclassroom, but with CPM getting
that long-term support, thatover time there is a body of
trust data and we can startseeing oh, this is an outlier.
But overall this journey hasbeen really valuable and so to
me that's one of the strengthsand I think it also gets
(26:44):
conveyed or translated into theclassroom Right, like I'll never
forget the first time, you know, I restructured the classroom
and I think some of the studentsthought they were being set up
to be honest.
They were being set up to behonest, like because, if you
(27:06):
think, when I think back, it waslike oh wait, we get to be in
group, okay, like, we get totalk, like I thought talking
wasn't allowed right right, likeyou know it's right.
So so it.
It's just a reminder thatwhether we're coming into an
organization, whether we'recoming into professional
development, or with studentswith a new structure for
(27:29):
learning, a new structure fordistrict power, the first
reaction is going to be a littlelike what do you mean, right,
and are you for real?
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
Is this really going to?
Speaker 1 (27:42):
stick.
I can tell you, I've done someisvs this week virtually with
teachers and, like the, this isa brand new school year, so very
new new implementation of cpm.
So thinking about collaboration, thinking about mixed space
practice, all that kind of thing, and they're the biggest
struggle I'm hearing from theteachers are that the students
(28:04):
don't quite get how to worktogether.
And I'm well, that's very true,because they don't.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
They just started it.
That's right, that's new.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
And my suggestion to the teachers was that one of the
best things you can do withstudents is to be really
transparent about why you'redoing something and say I'm
doing this for a reason andthere's going to be some times
it doesn't work, but we're goingto keep trying.
It's worth moving forward.
(28:33):
So we're going to remind youagain and I'll always be there
to help that process.
But that's what I'm relatingthis to is just that newness of
a situation.
You have to be open to try it,build the relationship.
But explain why you're doingsomething is huge.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Well, and that always reminds me of the like, having
that like belief, that groundingin why you're doing it, that
you also that you agree with it.
Right, like the, the, the.
The thing I feel like is one ofthe worst things teachers can
do is come in and they're likeokay, we're doing this.
I don't know if it's going towork, but we're going to try it.
It's just like chumming thewater and kids are like well, of
(29:19):
course, it's not going to work.
So, having that belief that it'sthe right thing to do, and to
be able to hear the questionsand hear them and say it's going
to be all right, we're going towork through it, we're going to
get to that place where we areable to do these things and it's
new and it's okay Like thatreassurance as well.
(29:40):
I was just thinking about whatyou were talking about with the
box person too.
There's something around the.
For me, it comes back toauthenticity.
For me it comes back toauthenticity.
When the PL department and NCPMin general, people are talking
about the curriculum, there's anauthenticity that we bring to
(30:01):
it because we believe it.
We're not just salespeople.
We are trying to market it.
We do need to market it and itcomes from what we believe and
it comes from our cores in thatway, in our own authenticity,
yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
Which people recognize, whether they think
they do or not, absolutely, andI think you know one of my
favorite taglines, because it'sso much more is by teachers, for
teachers, and I think thatcomes across in multiple ways.
Right, and maybe we were in theclassroom a long time ago, but
we still have had thatexperience in the classroom.
We've still tracked currentpractices and it makes a
(30:47):
difference, you know it makes adifference.
I agree with you, we do need tomarket and let more people know,
but it's centered on anauthentic belief by educators.
You know, most of our companyare educators.
The other folks are incredible,valuable colleagues, but we
believe in what we do.
It's powerful.
It's complex, right.
(31:09):
It's not easy to explain in aminute, because human beings are
not easy.
The construction of knowledgeis not easy to explain in a
minute because human beings arenot easy.
The construction of knowledgeis not easy.
Mathematics is, you know, alanguage we invented, right, and
to blame the world, I mean,it's complex, right, and it
should take a minute.
It should take multiple visits,it should take the whole
(31:31):
community of teachers to makesense of it.
Is that it should take thewhole community of teachers to
make sense of it.
And I feel like we've made alot of strides in, you know,
breaking down the classroomwalls, if you will Like.
I remember when I started thiswork Well, I see you remember,
yes, as well.
The notion of math teachersgetting together to talk about
(31:55):
mathematics was pretty radical.
Like, well, why would I talk tothe algebra teacher?
I teach pre-calculus, right?
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Hello, they're not related.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
I know what I'm teaching today.
Yeah, so much.
Well, thank you so much forcoming and having this
conversation with us.
We didn't know what you weregoing to talk about and somehow
we managed to talk, for 25minutes, come up with a fun
title.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I loved the first one .
Speaker 4 (32:22):
It was my favorite thing I think at CPM.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
What does he want?
Speaker 4 (32:40):
And what does?
Speaker 5 (32:40):
he want Take me to your leader.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
We know more of that now.
Thank you today we are startinga new join them on their
(33:07):
journey segment for this year.
In addition to our Join them onthe Journey with our teacher
research community person, andy,right now we have two Join them
on their Journeys for you fromsome of our participants from
the Academy of Best Practices.
So here you go.
(33:29):
This is our first segment.
Join them on their Journey withJessie and Chi.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Hello everyone.
My name is Jessie Todd.
I am a math teacher at AstoriaHigh School in Astoria, Oregon.
I am just finishing my secondweek of the school year in the
beginnings of my 19th year ofteaching.
This will be my 10th year atEstoria High School, but my
(33:59):
ninth year teaching with CPM.
We took a year off because ofCOVID and then in teaching
online, so this year I am doingIntegrated Math 1, a class that
we call Extended Algebra, whichis for our students that need a
little bit slower pace.
(34:22):
That class covers the secondhalf of Integrated 1.
I teach another class calledAdvanced Topics, which prepares
our students for Algebra 2, aswell as Pre-Counciling, and we
use CPM materials for all ofthose classes.
I am so excited to start thisschool year.
Over the summer I was fortunateenough to attend the Academy of
(34:45):
Business and I learned so muchand just really got
reinvigorated for the schoolyear.
So I'm taking a few things inthis year that I want to try in
my classroom as new things thatI am hoping my department is
going to try along with me, andI'm excited to share that
(35:08):
journey with all of you.
Number one I am going to try torandomize my group.
Every single day I'm buildingup to it.
We've done it in some of myclasses already and it's
absolutely going really good.
So I hope that we can keep thatenergy going through the school
(35:29):
year and I also as a PLC, wehave decided that we're going to
do a book study and go throughBuilding Thinking Blackroom,
which I'm also super excitedabout because that was a book
that was talked a lot about.
In the academic practice Iteach about I think I have about
(35:53):
150 students over those sixcareers of math that I teach
about.
I think I have about 150students over those six careers
of math that I teach, and I havethree other colleagues that are
going on this journey with meas well.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Hello, my name is Chi and I'm a second year teacher
here in Alameda, California.
It teaches IM1, Integrated Math1, to mainly freshmen, some 8th
graders, but also some 10thgrade, even 11th graders who
needed to finish this class forthe graduation requirement.
(36:30):
This is my second year teachingoverall and it's also my second
year here at NSNL.
It's been quite a journey, Iwould say it's been five weeks
in school and I came into theyear feeling very confident and
very excited because I feel likeI spent the whole summer
(36:54):
looking back at year one andrecognize and feel like there
was a lot of places I can dodifferently or better.
So, coming into year two, Ifelt that I had plans in place
to help with those things,mainly classroom management and
also cognitive demand placed onstudents.
(37:17):
We use a CPM curriculum whichbuilds on a lot of group work,
but what we're seeing in myclassroom is that students do
not know how to talk to eachother about math.
I think that years of mathbeforehand or just math
education in general, has taughtstudents to be compliant rather
(37:41):
than to I don't know what's theword to describe, but maybe
later on in the year I'll have abetter word for this but we
have taught students to becompliant rather than to think
and critically analyze what arethe information in front of them
.
We have exercised today chapter2.1.4 of the im1 textbook, cpm,
(38:07):
and one of the problem was togive students or pairs a line
condition, so something like aline that goes through this
point or a line that has a slopeof this and a point like this.
When I read it out loud to theclass, this seems fine.
(38:27):
Everyone were on the same pagewith me.
But as I set them off onto thetask and I'm circulating the
room, I'm seeing students havingtrouble comprehending what
those conditions were and I'mnot sure where the disconnect
comes from.
I think I think it's.
(38:47):
I think you say something aboutour education, math particular.
I just think that that's thesymptoms of how we're teaching
math and it's not a fact case.
We're basically over and overagain.
What we see is that we'retaking something that students
know already, but as we'rediving deeper into it they have
(39:10):
no idea of what that is, and Ithink some of it is anxiety that
associates with doing math.
But I also suspect maybe someof it comes from how we talk
about math in our classroomalong the way.
So when they move from oneclass to another or even one
school to another, theterminology changes how teachers
(39:33):
frame the same conceptdifferently.
I have students who knew what yequals, mx plus b was, yet
they're reciting the wrong thingabout what m is.
I have students who knew riseover run, but then they're
writing the ratio as delta xover delta y.
So a lot of the work that I feellike I'm doing in im1 is to
(39:57):
kind of strip down thefoundation so that we can build
on this in im2 and im3 andcalculus and and hopefully this
rebuild is for the student toput in the work itself, because
clearly when we tell a studentto memorize certain things, it
(40:22):
hasn't worked.
So I don't know, there's a loton my mind.
Um, it's thursday and you knowit didn't go too well today, I
feel.
But we'll keep coming backtomorrow We'll try again and
we'll figure this thing outeventually, even if it takes my
(40:45):
whole life.
That's it for now.
Have a good night.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Have a good night.
So that is all we have time foron this episode of the More
Math for More People podcast.
If you are interested inconnecting with us on social
media, find our links in thepodcast description, and the
music for the podcast wascreated by Julius H and can be
found on pixabaycom.
So thank you very much, julius.
(41:17):
Join us in two weeks for thenext episode of More Math for
More People.
What day will that be, joel?
Speaker 1 (41:24):
It'll be September 16th, collect Rocks Days, and
the day to collect rocks is tokind of think about digging and
exploring and finding out aboutrocks, and we'll give you some
ideas of how to celebrate thisday.
I know in some places it's nota good idea to collect rocks,
say, like a national park,things like that.
There's other places where it'sinteresting to collect rocks,
(41:49):
but either way, geology ispretty fascinating and I can't
wait to talk to what Misty'sexperience has been with rocks
and share my own as well.
So we'll see you on September16th to talk about collecting
rocks, thank you.
You are listening to the More Math for More People
podcast.
An outreach of CPM educationalprogram Boom.
An outreach of CPM EducationalProgram Boom.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
All right, it is the 16th of September already.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Do you remember?
No, that's 21st.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
This is the 16th.
This is the 16th, yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Wow, that's good.
That's a good throwback, thoughthe earth is the 16th.
Yeah, sorry.
Wow, that's good, that's a goodthrowback, though the earth,
wind and fire.
Yeah yeah, the year's almostover.
Oh my gosh, like we're in thelast.
We're almost in the lastquarter of the year.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I wonder if that's could you think of it
pessimistically oroptimistically that this is the
last of the year, like it feelsdefinite, like the last of the
year, like when you said it itfelt pessimistic to me but
optimistically we're in the fall.
I see we're in a new season, anew beginning.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I think it's more just as I get older, the passing
of time that feels like it goesso much more quickly.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Oh my gosh yes.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
It just like.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I'm like no, I don't really want time to go more
quickly, right now?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
No, I don't.
Sometimes, most of the time Idon't.
All right, so it's the 16th ofSeptember though it sure is so
what is our national day today,joel?
It is Collect Rocks Day.
Oh, I like rocks.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I do too.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Collect rocks day.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Yeah, what yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
When I feel like, well, when I was a kid I we
would go to the beach and Iwould come home with like all
kinds of things.
I was always just picking upstuff, put it in my pockets and
I'd bring them home Bottle caps.
And they didn't always oh nolike rocks and sand, dollars and
other small things that didn'talways smell so great when they
(02:05):
got home, because no, thatseawater, sand embedded in those
rocks is not.
Yeah, or in the formerly livingthings, or I would pick up all
these rocks because they looksuper cool, but then when they
dry they don't look as cool.
They look cool when they arewet and you can see all the
(02:25):
shiny coolness of them, but I Ido like rocks.
I think in some other versionof my life I'm a geologist of
some kind.
I think that's true.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I wonder if the one that learned about geology
before they were 25 but I justthinking are we all geologists,
maybe at different phases in ourlife Well in the multiverse,
everyone in some version of themultiverse is a geologist.
So this will be a three-partepisode of the multiverse.
(02:59):
Well, okay, but we're reallytalking about collecting rocks.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yes, we are yeah, I have to.
I have to, like now, beintentional about my collection
of rocks how are you?
Intentional more in that I like, I, I really I'm more into like
collecting, like particularrocks and stones and crystals,
and things now and and I like toknow why I have that rock.
(03:28):
That's kind of my intention.
If I get to the place where I'mlike I don't even know what all
these rocks are, then I havetoo many rocks, yeah, or stones,
or crystals, or do you want tocall them, but so it's.
It's kind of like keeping trackand knowing what.
What is the representationalnature?
Of this object that I have.
That's kind of my intention.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
I think that's true for me too.
If I collect a rock, it'sbecause it's attached to a
memory.
So it's not really a geologicalthing, but as a junior ranger,
we're taught that you don't takea rock from a place.
You leave it where it is.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
You appreciate it in that space.
If everyone took a rock, therewouldn't be any rocks left for
anyone else, as my grandmotheralways told me which I never
really believed.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Well, it's true.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
True-ish?
Okay, there would still be morerocks, and they're still there.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yes, and they wouldn't be as many for people.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
They'd just be in different locations.
Yes, but I do attach them tomemories and I just I find
geology fascinating because ofthe.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
It just tells a story to me Of the earth, yeah, of
what happened here at some pointWeird.
I also like to collect or bringhome rocks that look like
hearts, like that's.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
I do too.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, so that would be the other.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, another collection.
I didn't know that about you.
Just, I do that too Nice.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, so it's not, it's, it's national collect
rocks day.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Collect rocks day.
Yeah, so it's National CollectRocks Day, collect Rocks Day.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
So what are the suggested activities other than
taking rocks from national parks?
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Don't do it, Just don't do it.
You could visit a naturalhistory museum.
Oh.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I love natural history museums.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I do too.
You could get creative anddisplay your rocks maybe paint
your rocks.
I've done that before.
Let's see.
Those are kind of suggestions.
I'm trying to think of what Iwould do?
What are you going to do?
I think that I would maybe lookat my rock collections yeah,
(05:43):
and by collections I don't keepthem in one space, I have them
kind of all over.
But I mean, and rocks, there'smoon rocks, there's all sorts of
types of rocks.
So it's my mind's kind of likethinking how can I celebrate
that too?
How would you celebrate?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I think, like similarly, I think you know, I
like I want to look through therocks that I have and why I have
them.
I might even go collect somemore rocks, which might mean buy
some more rocks.
But I might collect some morerocks, we'll see, yeah, rocks,
we'll see, yeah, no, I I think Ithink there's something really
(06:25):
just particular kinds of rockshave like particular just
feeling to them, right likethey're just pretty, but they
also have like sense to them.
I just I think that there'sthink there's a good reason
we're enamored of rocks I agreewith that and I like also that
like some rocks look really coolwhen they're all like polished
(06:47):
up and shiny.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
I have a rock polisher and other rocks are
really cool when they're justrough right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
They're just craggy or whatever.
You have a rock polisher, Ihave a rock polisher Dude.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
That's pretty cool.
So to celebrate you could sendme some of your rocks and I
could polish.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
There you go, I'm gonna send you some rocks to
polish for me and then next timeI see you in person, yeah, I'll
get them back, yeah sweet.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Well, it's nash, not whatever it's collect rocks
collect rocks or not collectrocks, let's just all do it.
Let's just all do it, yeahthere you go, go out and collect
some rocks.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
Give me sound with your editing.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, we can edit all the sound.
I have a lot of trust.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
After one time I have a lot of trust with you guys.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
So we don't know what we're going to talk about today
.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
No, I have a lot of things running through my mind.
How about if I start there?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, that sounds great, I'd love to hear them.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Let's see what's doing that.
You know, running a back burneris the latest horrific incident
in Minneapolis.
I mean, you know, I don't wantto like be one of the people
that claims the space justbecause we're going there.
And yet we're going there,we're going, for you know we're
(08:19):
anticipating team building andpositivity and connection and
we'll be entering a space that Isuspect will still be reeling.
You know from sure what happenedwell and we have many team
members who live in the areathat's right and you know that
was the gist of my post.
I didn't want it to go withoutpath.
As head of school over twoschools, I found myself
(08:43):
sometimes it felt like I wasoverposting, Like there were so
many situations that we shouldbe attentive to that we should
be marking as problematic,beyond problematic, you know.
And that post I put in Slacktoday was this commitment like
(09:03):
let's not make it normal, right,let's not ever normalize it in
a way that it goes without beingmentioned or noted or what have
you.
So that was my intent.
I can actually think of placesevents that we were having
across different parts of thecountry that I was participating
(09:24):
in that were impacted by thesehorrible acts and I think, as
teachers and educators aneducational company we have a
viewpoint.
You know it's horrific for allpeople, period.
Educators have this likedifferent window into what that
(09:46):
looks like.
It feels like right.
Any educator who's been throughany kind of intruder practice,
whether it's with children, godforbid.
I mean, I tried to keepchildren, especially little ones
, out of that.
But with or without it's it, itmarks you forever, like you
know, and then when you seesomething happen it it really
(10:09):
drives home how frustrating andpowerless this whole situation
is yeah, for sure, for sure,yeah if there's, I I don't even
know what kind of response tomake to that.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
There isn't.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
There's no appropriate words right now.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Right.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
You said the unique role of education in things too.
I feel like it's unique in thatwe are connected to people's
families and we're connected todifferent aspects of people's
lives as teachers in differentways.
Like as a math educator, youkind of put the math down.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
Maybe for that day and talk about something
different.
Yeah, no, kind of going back towhat we were talking about
earlier.
It's that, it's that theme.
I always go back to stop, likestop whatever you're doing, yeah
, and think about this.
Is this thing that happened?
And, and I think for teachersyou're right, joel it's this
(11:11):
notion of like we know that we,we can imagine the family right
and we don't have to reach farfor that.
So so that's been on my mind.
I, I, I would argue it's on theminds of all educators whenever
it occurs.
And, you know, not all of themmake headlines anymore, which is
another tragedy.
(11:49):
So, as a new leader, you knowone of the things you you
navigate is is developingrelationships.
So really you're not developingrelationships for the sake of
friendliness and collegiality.
I mean that's nice, that'sreally a nice byproduct, but
ultimately, you want to havesome trust in the bank on both
ends of the equation, right, sothat we can work together in the
(12:11):
future, so that we cancollaborate, so that we can go
through tough stretches ofcollaboration, right, and
disagreements and all of that.
And so that's been on my mind alot and you know I'm certainly
working on it from my end.
We've been having a lot ofconversation at the leadership
team level where you know we'redeveloping these charters that
(12:33):
will soon be very public and thecharter is not just a piece of
paper that we check off, it's anongoing one of the leadership
team members described it as anongoing non-trivial conversation
, like how do we give itnon-trivial time?
(12:55):
And I thought that was so wiseto point out, because if it is
trivial, if we're just kind ofchecking it off and we're
fitting it into 10 minutes ofthe agenda, then it's going to
be deployed in a trivial way,but we're giving it a lot of
thought and we are building theagreements of how we're going to
be with one another as leaders,as we have the conversation
(13:18):
about the charter, as leaders aswe have the conversation about
the charter.
If that makes sense.
And then you got to make itpublic because that's the
accountability piece.
Right, you don't want thesmoke-filled room, so to speak.
You know where decisions aremade.
I don't even know if that's athing anymore.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Like who's having smoke-filled rooms.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
I guess it's now a non-smoking room where secret
decisions are made, or vapingroom, I don't know.
I'm going.
The analogy metaphor is losingits credibility when these
decisions go.
This is where these decisionsgo and what's the cycle of
(14:01):
accountability, transparency andalso revision, Like I love that
our charter currently has it.
Every six months, we're goingto revisit our charter.
We're going to think okay, isthis still working?
Have times changed?
Are we in a different situation?
Did a thing happen?
Like I would argue that if athing happened, right, you
(14:24):
should go to the charter for aminute and say, okay, can we
actually operate this way?
Because we've just entered, youknow concrete example, a
pandemic.
I wonder how many of us reallystopped and said, all right, we
got to respond, but, like, howdoes this impact our working
(14:44):
agreement?
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Right, right Right.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Well, and it's so interesting, that whole the
crafting of agreements, right,working agreements are so
interesting to me because wewant to start with well, what
are our working agreements?
Right, here we have this newteam, this new class, whatever.
Right, like I'm in my class,I'm like, okay, great, we're
going to have some workingagreements, what are our class
agreements?
But we haven't done anything yetwe might have some ideas of
(15:09):
what we want, but until we startliving them, then we know if
they fit or not.
Like we might go, oh, we wantthis and that and the other
thing, whatever.
We might, you know, say somethings.
And oh, we want this and thatand the other thing, whatever.
We might say some things, butthen as we start with, well,
actually we want this to be alittle different, or this isn't
working as well, and thatability then to say I want to
(15:29):
shift the agreements and how,like, if there isn't a way of,
it's not a grievance, but ifthere isn't some way of being
able to do that, then you kindof get stuck in this.
Well, I agreed to a thing andnow I'm trying to do a thing
that doesn't feel right for me,right?
So I like what you're talkingabout, with the like thinking
about it, sort of living it asyou're doing it, having a
(15:54):
revision, the timeframe like atimeframe in mind where we're
going to revisit it, so that'snot just a.
Well, I have to wait until itgets really uncomfortable before
I say something.
Right, because I know I'm, Iknow I'm disrupting by saying
something I I love thatconnection to the classroom.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
You know I'm sure we've all had those agreements.
Call it what you will right atsome point I think we call them
norms and those became that wordand that approach became, I
think, problematic.
But yeah, it's also interestingin the classroom let's focus
there how quickly the agreement,whatever you call it, the
(16:33):
agreement becomes like the lawand you know we forget, like
constitutional amendments, andyou know changing circumstances
and I sometimes wonder if we'veactually missed an opportunity
to teach a bigger lesson.
(16:54):
Right, like, okay, these areagreements and, yes, they're
going to be revisited.
They're going to be revised andnot like in your next grade.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
The next time you have a new class, Like next time
you're like yep, sorry.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
You know we agreed to that in September.
And that's the way it's goingto be.
I think a more valuable lessonis to show both the value and
power of working agreement, aswell as how you revisit right
and I think in a cpm classroomwhere in in my mind we, we are
(17:28):
about redistributing power,authority, positionality, the
relationship with mathematics inthe in the classroom like to me
that was with mathematics inthe classroom.
Like to me, that was back in the90s and I think it still is.
So we're not just reconfiguringthe physical classroom, we're
saying to kids hey, you have thepower to engage with
(17:51):
mathematics without me.
Wow, like I'll be over here.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
That's right, and I think that You're going to have
to do something while I'm notthere.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
You have to do something while I'm not there,
and I would argue that CPMworking agreements are just a
huge opportunity to do exactlywhat we're talking about Right
To think about revision andchange and student poison and
student poison.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Well, I mean, we're touching on all the points of
real life, but a student mightgo through seven different
agreements in a day, right fromclass to class to class.
We go through differentagreements, maybe in a different
group that we're doing likeMisty said, or the whole school
has some agreements of how weinteract with each other.
So as much as a student canfeel like they have that power,
(18:42):
have that voice, I think onlybenefits them, while I run
anyway.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
Yeah, no, that's really interesting.
That's a great reminder, joel.
Right, like they're actuallyhaving to navigate, like it's
almost like they need a passport, right?
Oh, I'm in Mr Jones' class, so,like the law here is different,
you know.
I was at a school that, in itsfounding years, developed a
(19:10):
constitution and a Bill ofRights for the entire school
right and it was.
I mean, it was cool because, ofcourse, the first class got to
sign you know the documents andthey remained enshrined on the
wall.
I don't recall any amendments.
To be frank, it was a prettybroadly drafted document.
(19:37):
I remember it included theright to a class pet which, as
the subsequent head of school, II raised my fist to the creator
of that right but.
But my point is that that it wasreferenced like all kidding
aside, there were some reallygood items on there that could
(19:59):
be referenced across theexperience, like hey, remember,
we say that we have a right to,and then it opens up the
conversation to.
You know, with great powercomes great responsibility, and
with right, the history socialstudies teacher just used it as
a great vehicle.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Sure, oh man, teacher just used it as a great vehicle
.
Oh, I'm sure, yeah, sure, ohman, I didn't.
And I think about, like when wewould start our class
agreements at the beginning ofthe year.
And it's been all this timethat back in the day, I always
had like in mind, like okay,here's how we're gonna like
summarize them anyway, like tomake it simple and
straightforward.
Yeah, yeah, so many pieces, butI want to think about that trust
piece too.
You were talking about trust,and I think trust is such an
(20:47):
interesting thing, right,because it's really easy to well
, it's really easy to breaktrust.
It's very hard to reestablishtrust, right?
I remember I raised middle, I'draised teenagers right and well
.
Once you've broken the trust,it's really.
You can't just like do it rightonce and now trust is back
right.
So that how to build trustagain before you've like you're
(21:10):
talking about like I've justarrived into this position and
the things that I'm buildingtrust, but like I have, I have
done very little yet.
I mean you've, you've done alot.
I'm saying you haven't, but youhave like.
Trust is something that's builtover time as much as anything,
right, it's consistency overtime.
And so trying to like you haveto like almost figuring out like
what's the trajectory of myconsistency that I'm then going
(21:32):
to maintain right, what's thesustainable interaction that I
can that I can do, so that I'mnot like doing a whole bunch a
whole bunch that I can't thenmaintain, which then loses that
trust.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
Yeah right, yeah, no, I I really love that framing
and and the truth is, a newleader hasn't done a lot like,
yeah, you can do a lot, but isthat body of work really
connected to trust building?
Like, are, like, are they trustbuilding worthy activities?
And some of the activities youhave to do you just have to do
for continuity, for passing thebaton, but it's when you start
getting into decision making andcommitting to something and
(22:13):
sometimes you have to react tonew data Like it's this notion
of you know, I've never beenthat leader who's like, well,
once I make a decision, I haveto go back to what we were just
talking about.
Like it's a forever right,forever, or I'll be perceived as
a weak leader.
Like I feel like that also is aI hope is is a declining model
(22:36):
of leadership.
I think leadership is aboutmaking the best decision moment
with it, with the data you have,and then you have to be
vulnerable and share with folks.
Hey, like, actually, at thetime, I think that was a decent
decision.
Now, same theme.
You're like things have changed, we have new data, what have
you?
I really have loved thecharacterization that I heard
(22:59):
from a colleague years ago thatyou don't trust people, you
trust their habit, right that?
Ultimately, like we, we fallinto a lot.
But, joe, you know.
Susie I trust her with you knowmy life Right.
And then, if you, if you kindof go deeper, what you typically
(23:21):
find is a long-termrelationship where that trust
has been built through habits,right, Showing up, proving to be
transparent, proving to beconfidential.
It applies to kids in middleschool and beyond who are
developing friendships.
But that's always spoken to meand I really keep that in mind.
(23:43):
You have to have a body of work.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
And so it goes to agreements.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
I mean trust and agreements sort of go hand in
hand.
Often it's the agreements youbreak because you had no body of
work.
Hang them on, that break oftrust.
And then you have to be presentwork to hang them on.
That breaks the trust.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
And then you have to be present too to receive the
opportunity to be there.
It's not just going to happen.
You mentioned you're not goingto manufacture something or
anything like that.
It's got to be in that moment,like you said.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah, like trust is something that is.
I have trust because of what'shappened.
It's a past right, it's a, it'sa reliance on that.
The past will continue into thefuture, and so like to be able
to think about, oh, how do I?
And then?
And then, if there is enoughpast right and there's bobbles
because there's always noiseright In the pattern then I can
(24:38):
trust it's oh, it's just aninconsistency, as opposed to oh
no, that's how this person isright, because we'll all drop
the ball at some point,different things.
We won't do it all perfectlyall the time, and so that
history is what allows us tobuild that.
But how to get to that is sucha challenge and I think we face
that in our classrooms.
(24:59):
We face it when we're workingwith teachers.
Right, we come into a classroomwith someone implementing and
want them to trust us, to givethem feedback and to be
compassionate and all thesepieces, but they don't know us
at all, necessarily any reasonto have that until we can like
(25:20):
to.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
So we're always in that position of trying to build
it right, trying to buildrapport and connection and a
relationship that is trustthat's so interesting because I
I think our longer termcommitment, commitment we want
to develop and grow more andmore every day, is part of the
(25:41):
success of CPM.
Right Like, like we don't justshow up one day with a teacher
box, right Like no offense, theteacher boxes.
But what I have seen from my ownexperience is that, like some
folks are really good at sort ofengendering trust in that
moment for that session with theteacher box and you're excited
(26:03):
and new, but then it's almostlike if it doesn't work out, you
feel really betrayed by the forthe box, the box and the box
person because you like, likeit's, that's how we are, like
we're excited about new thingsas a profession, I believe, and
we want to do right by students.
(26:24):
We want to do better in theclassroom, but with CPM getting
that long-term support, thatover time there is a body of
trust data and we can startseeing oh, this is an outlier.
But overall this journey hasbeen really valuable and so to
me that's one of the strengthsand I think it also gets
(26:44):
conveyed or translated into theclassroom Right, like I'll never
forget the first time, you know, I restructured the classroom
and I think some of the studentsthought they were being set up
to be honest.
They were being set up to behonest, like because, if you
(27:06):
think, when I think back, it waslike oh wait, we get to be in
group, okay, like, we get totalk, like I thought talking
wasn't allowed right right, likeyou know it's right.
So so it.
It's just a reminder thatwhether we're coming into an
organization, whether we'recoming into professional
development, or with studentswith a new structure for
(27:29):
learning, a new structure fordistrict power, the first
reaction is going to be a littlelike what do you mean, right,
and are you for real?
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
Is this really going to?
Speaker 1 (27:42):
stick.
I can tell you, I've done someisvs this week virtually with
teachers and, like the, this isa brand new school year, so very
new new implementation of cpm.
So thinking about collaboration, thinking about mixed space
practice, all that kind of thing, and they're the biggest
struggle I'm hearing from theteachers are that the students
(28:04):
don't quite get how to worktogether.
And I'm well, that's very true,because they don't.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
They just started it.
That's right, that's new.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
And my suggestion to the teachers was that one of the
best things you can do withstudents is to be really
transparent about why you'redoing something and say I'm
doing this for a reason andthere's going to be some times
it doesn't work, but we're goingto keep trying.
It's worth moving forward.
(28:33):
So we're going to remind youagain and I'll always be there
to help that process.
But that's what I'm relatingthis to is just that newness of
a situation.
You have to be open to try it,build the relationship.
But explain why you're doingsomething is huge.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Well, and that always reminds me of the like, having
that like belief, that groundingin why you're doing it, that
you also that you agree with it.
Right, like the, the, the.
The thing I feel like is one ofthe worst things teachers can
do is come in and they're likeokay, we're doing this.
I don't know if it's going towork, but we're going to try it.
It's just like chumming thewater and kids are like well, of
(29:19):
course, it's not going to work.
So, having that belief that it'sthe right thing to do, and to
be able to hear the questionsand hear them and say it's going
to be all right, we're going towork through it, we're going to
get to that place where we areable to do these things and it's
new and it's okay Like thatreassurance as well.
(29:40):
I was just thinking about whatyou were talking about with the
box person too.
There's something around the.
For me, it comes back toauthenticity.
For me it comes back toauthenticity.
When the PL department and NCPMin general, people are talking
about the curriculum, there's anauthenticity that we bring to
(30:01):
it because we believe it.
We're not just salespeople.
We are trying to market it.
We do need to market it and itcomes from what we believe and
it comes from our cores in thatway, in our own authenticity,
yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:24):
Which people recognize, whether they think
they do or not, absolutely, andI think you know one of my
favorite taglines, because it'sso much more is by teachers, for
teachers, and I think thatcomes across in multiple ways.
Right, and maybe we were in theclassroom a long time ago, but
we still have had thatexperience in the classroom.
We've still tracked currentpractices and it makes a
(30:47):
difference, you know it makes adifference.
I agree with you, we do need tomarket and let more people know,
but it's centered on anauthentic belief by educators.
You know, most of our companyare educators.
The other folks are incredible,valuable colleagues, but we
believe in what we do.
It's powerful.
It's complex, right.
(31:09):
It's not easy to explain in aminute, because human beings are
not easy.
The construction of knowledgeis not easy to explain in a
minute because human beings arenot easy.
The construction of knowledgeis not easy.
Mathematics is, you know, alanguage we invented, right, and
to blame the world, I mean,it's complex, right, and it
should take a minute.
It should take multiple visits,it should take the whole
(31:31):
community of teachers to makesense of it.
Is that it should take thewhole community of teachers to
make sense of it.
And I feel like we've made alot of strides in, you know,
breaking down the classroomwalls, if you will Like.
I remember when I started thiswork Well, I see you remember,
yes, as well.
The notion of math teachersgetting together to talk about
(31:55):
mathematics was pretty radical.
Like, well, why would I talk tothe algebra teacher?
I teach pre-calculus, right?
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Hello, they're not related.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
I know what I'm teaching today.
Yeah, so much.
Well, thank you so much forcoming and having this
conversation with us.
We didn't know what you weregoing to talk about and somehow
we managed to talk, for 25minutes, come up with a fun
title.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
I loved the first one .
Speaker 4 (32:22):
It was my favorite thing I think at CPM.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
What does he want?
Speaker 4 (32:40):
And what does?
Speaker 5 (32:40):
he want Take me to your leader.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
We know more of that now.
Thank you today we are startinga new join them on their
(33:07):
journey segment for this year.
In addition to our Join them onthe Journey with our teacher
research community person, andy,right now we have two Join them
on their Journeys for you fromsome of our participants from
the Academy of Best Practices.
So here you go.
(33:29):
This is our first segment.
Join them on their Journey withJessie and Chi.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Hello everyone.
My name is Jessie Todd.
I am a math teacher at AstoriaHigh School in Astoria, Oregon.
I am just finishing my secondweek of the school year in the
beginnings of my 19th year ofteaching.
This will be my 10th year atEstoria High School, but my
(33:59):
ninth year teaching with CPM.
We took a year off because ofCOVID and then in teaching
online, so this year I am doingIntegrated Math 1, a class that
we call Extended Algebra, whichis for our students that need a
little bit slower pace.
(34:22):
That class covers the secondhalf of Integrated 1.
I teach another class calledAdvanced Topics, which prepares
our students for Algebra 2, aswell as Pre-Counciling, and we
use CPM materials for all ofthose classes.
I am so excited to start thisschool year.
Over the summer I was fortunateenough to attend the Academy of
(34:45):
Business and I learned so muchand just really got
reinvigorated for the schoolyear.
So I'm taking a few things inthis year that I want to try in
my classroom as new things thatI am hoping my department is
going to try along with me, andI'm excited to share that
(35:08):
journey with all of you.
Number one I am going to try torandomize my group.
Every single day I'm buildingup to it.
We've done it in some of myclasses already and it's
absolutely going really good.
So I hope that we can keep thatenergy going through the school
(35:29):
year and I also as a PLC, wehave decided that we're going to
do a book study and go throughBuilding Thinking Blackroom,
which I'm also super excitedabout because that was a book
that was talked a lot about.
In the academic practice Iteach about I think I have about
(35:53):
150 students over those sixcareers of math that I teach
about.
I think I have about 150students over those six careers
of math that I teach, and I havethree other colleagues that are
going on this journey with meas well.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Hello, my name is Chi and I'm a second year teacher
here in Alameda, California.
It teaches IM1, Integrated Math1, to mainly freshmen, some 8th
graders, but also some 10thgrade, even 11th graders who
needed to finish this class forthe graduation requirement.
(36:30):
This is my second year teachingoverall and it's also my second
year here at NSNL.
It's been quite a journey, Iwould say it's been five weeks
in school and I came into theyear feeling very confident and
very excited because I feel likeI spent the whole summer
(36:54):
looking back at year one andrecognize and feel like there
was a lot of places I can dodifferently or better.
So, coming into year two, Ifelt that I had plans in place
to help with those things,mainly classroom management and
also cognitive demand placed onstudents.
(37:17):
We use a CPM curriculum whichbuilds on a lot of group work,
but what we're seeing in myclassroom is that students do
not know how to talk to eachother about math.
I think that years of mathbeforehand or just math
education in general, has taughtstudents to be compliant rather
(37:41):
than to I don't know what's theword to describe, but maybe
later on in the year I'll have abetter word for this but we
have taught students to becompliant rather than to think
and critically analyze what arethe information in front of them
.
We have exercised today chapter2.1.4 of the im1 textbook, cpm,
(38:07):
and one of the problem was togive students or pairs a line
condition, so something like aline that goes through this
point or a line that has a slopeof this and a point like this.
When I read it out loud to theclass, this seems fine.
(38:27):
Everyone were on the same pagewith me.
But as I set them off onto thetask and I'm circulating the
room, I'm seeing students havingtrouble comprehending what
those conditions were and I'mnot sure where the disconnect
comes from.
I think I think it's.
(38:47):
I think you say something aboutour education, math particular.
I just think that that's thesymptoms of how we're teaching
math and it's not a fact case.
We're basically over and overagain.
What we see is that we'retaking something that students
know already, but as we'rediving deeper into it they have
(39:10):
no idea of what that is, and Ithink some of it is anxiety that
associates with doing math.
But I also suspect maybe someof it comes from how we talk
about math in our classroomalong the way.
So when they move from oneclass to another or even one
school to another, theterminology changes how teachers
(39:33):
frame the same conceptdifferently.
I have students who knew what yequals, mx plus b was, yet
they're reciting the wrong thingabout what m is.
I have students who knew riseover run, but then they're
writing the ratio as delta xover delta y.
So a lot of the work that I feellike I'm doing in im1 is to
(39:57):
kind of strip down thefoundation so that we can build
on this in im2 and im3 andcalculus and and hopefully this
rebuild is for the student toput in the work itself, because
clearly when we tell a studentto memorize certain things, it
(40:22):
hasn't worked.
So I don't know, there's a loton my mind.
Um, it's thursday and you knowit didn't go too well today, I
feel.
But we'll keep coming backtomorrow We'll try again and
we'll figure this thing outeventually, even if it takes my
(40:45):
whole life.
That's it for now.
Have a good night.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Have a good night.
So that is all we have time foron this episode of the More
Math for More People podcast.
If you are interested inconnecting with us on social
media, find our links in thepodcast description, and the
music for the podcast wascreated by Julius H and can be
found on pixabaycom.
So thank you very much, julius.
(41:17):
Join us in two weeks for thenext episode of More Math for
More People.
What day will that be, joel?
Speaker 1 (41:24):
It'll be September 16th, collect Rocks Days, and
the day to collect rocks is tokind of think about digging and
exploring and finding out aboutrocks, and we'll give you some
ideas of how to celebrate thisday.
I know in some places it's nota good idea to collect rocks,
say, like a national park,things like that.
There's other places where it'sinteresting to collect rocks,
(41:49):
but either way, geology ispretty fascinating and I can't
wait to talk to what Misty'sexperience has been with rocks
and share my own as well.
So we'll see you on September16th to talk about collecting
rocks, thank you.
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