This is a repost from The JLV.
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Remember when I told you I’d need a timeout so I could write a book? Welp, it’s almost here and I’m so excited to share how we got here!
Believe it or not, it starts where it ends. In early February of 2020, I had a call with an editor about a potential math book. She said, “Jose, but I’m not a math editor.” I said, “Exactly.” I didn’t want to write the typical content-area book. We have plenty of examples of great math books, but few that discuss underlying principles and who we’re doing this work for. In other words, if the math book hit for a person who didn’t see themselves as a math content expert, then I’ve written the book I wanted in the world.
But then two life-altering things happened back-to-back: an acceptance letter to Teachers College, Columbia University to pursue my doctorate and a global pandemic arriving on American shores. In the midst of a personal win, I quickly felt the immense wave of losses. As degrees of separation between me and people who died from COVID passed, I also saw my classes physically slipping away. Some people’s memories, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s, may be short, but more of us remember the harrowing images and numbers of people we lost. I became the bearer and receiver of bad news weekly.
And then there was this book.
I was fiddling with ideas in a proposal. The words came in chunks, not flows. One of my first proposals felt like I threw papier-mâché on my walls. “Here’s what I want to say to families.” “Here’s what I might say to non-math educators.” This all happened while reading about Marx, Engels, and Weber, turning in theoretical papers deep in the trenches of my mind, but distant from the lived realities of people away from the centers of academia. People asked me to make meaning of education amidst human rights rebellions in the street, social depression among our youth, and political turmoil.
I willingly obliged them because I, like so many of us, needed to rise to the occasion. As always. But then this book.
This book may get marketed as “by a teacher for teachers,” but underneath it lies ulterior motives. As I’m breezing through earlier proposals and drafts I submitted, I’m trying to address people who consider themselves “non-math” people. What even is a math person? Many of us who teach math were more often than not the winners of a system that, at each stage of our K-12 journey, treats math like a sifter until only the finest powder makes it through. That’s one way of creating a society, but does it point towards an authentic democracy?
No, definitely not. Where too many people concentrate strictly on outcomes, I see there’s a need to talk about how we got here. It isn’t just standardized testing. It’s a complete disregard of civilizations since time immemorial. Our concepts of zero, our units of measurement (because customary is just awful), and our math more generally came to the present through political and structural means. Which math mattered and for who has always been up for debate. What shouldn’t be up for debate is whether our students come from communities that use math on multiple fronts.
The book hopefully solves for that, too.
And so the title You Already Know emerges from that idea. I’ve talked to you about ideas, but ultimately, here are some things worth knowing:
- I don’t remember when it was over until it was.
- There were multiple eyes on it at different points of the process, but ultimately, the writing and composition all came from within me.
- I could have kept writing. Even before we had to turn it into the printer, I still had minor revisions and edits I wanted to make.
You’re getting my best (up to this point) ideas about the math I learned and who I learned it from. As most of the country’s PK-12 students have already started classes, this book hopefully arrives just when you either feel bored, stymied, or in need of a reminder of the math teacher you want to be for your students. The book even comes with a short framework for how to do the work:
You Already Know is organized around five core principles of responsive math pedagogy:
- use what students already know
- allow more mistakes
- support students’ struggle
- let students teach, too
- answer questions with more questions
I’m also seeing how this book comes just weeks before more potential civil unrest in the form of midterm elections. While federal and local forces attempt to take a hatchet to governance, I also wish for this book to help carve the way forward. It should stand as testament that someone said and did something to concretize the work of teachers. As someone who’s taught so many students of different backgrounds, I believe we’re ten toes down on responsiveness to our students and communities, too.
But you already knew that. I know you did.
Jose
