Teachers' and students'attitudes to mathematics: received messages
The content of these first two sessions was very familiar to me.  Having been involved in teacher education as well as my role a class teacher for many years, negative views about maths have been shared on every course, session I've ever led!, including parents' sessions.  The negative experiences that many people share about maths very often revolve around some key ideas:

• It's not relevant to my daily life
• It's difficult
• It's abstract
• I don't have a 'maths brain'

As an educator, one of my main aims is to open the door to a new understanding of the importance of maths and to help learners realize that everybody can achieve high levels of understanding.  Relevance is hugely important and mathematics is simply a language that helps us understand and explain the natural and made world.  One of the main advantages of our inquiry-based programme is the opportunity it gives us as teachers to bring maths to life and reveal what an amazing way of thinking it is.  It's everywhere we care to look!  Here's an image from my Sunday afternoon stroll

that got me thinking about angles and geometry!:  What angle is this skateboard ramp?  Is it optimal for its purpose?  Who designed it?  The skateboarders themselves?  

How has knowledge of geometry informed the design of this skateboard park?

What fraction of a circle's circumference is this arc segment?  What decisions were made when designing it?  Very often, traditional approaches to teaching geometry focus on examples in textbooks that can be divorced from reality, in particular, a reality that young learners can connect with and are interested in.  These examples above could provide the stimulus for learning in geometry from Grade 3 to Grade 8 ....examples such as these are everywhere and by collecting them we can bring mathematics alive by making it relevant to our immediate environment.

What messages are we sending?

There are two main ideas that resonated with me from the first session.

1. Students respond to the messages they receive from those around them. Examples were given of messages that students may receive from society. e.g. girls are not good at maths. This prompted me to think about what messages I subconsciously transmit to students. Have I absorbed stereotypes relating to maths success? Have I prejudged what I think my students are capable of, or more importantly, not capable of? If so, do I subconsciously transmit these messages to my students?


Are any of my students in the grey area in the diagram? If so, how can I move them out of it?

The session has encouraged me to reassess my expectations of students, observe the messages I am giving them, and adjust my interactions with students who may not be fully achieving. By asking them what they think in a manner that communicates that I'm interested in them and expect them to succeed may well change their response to maths.

In terms of gender stereotypes, I read somewhere that stereotype issues are reinforced when teachers talk to their students as 'boys and girls', and reduced when they refer to them as students, or in other non-gender-specific language.

2. I aim to develop a classroom environment where students:
    a. identify problems, uncertainties and areas of interest
    b. have space, time, resources and support to explore their ideas, both alone and collaboratively
    c. encourage them to communicate what they have discovered with the wider group.

The first session has reinforced my thinking that this is what I should be aiming for in maths.