What Alabama and Wisconsin can teach us about math instruction

It seems like since the very inception of public education in the United States, we have been grappling with what good math instruction should look like. For example, in 1895 John Dewey wrote, “There is no subject taught in the elementary schools that taxes the teacher’s resources as to methods and devices to a greater extent than arithmetic. There is no subject taught that is more dangerous to the pupil in the way of deadening his mind and arresting its development, if bad methods are used.”

Seven years later the United States Bureau Of Education lamented that “The worst of all educations is the solemn, joyless education.”

However, also since the very inception of public education in the United States, there have ALWAYS been math educators screaming from the mountaintops describing EXACTLY what great math instruction should look like. In 1896 Florian Cajori described exactly the remedy to the deadening math instruction Dewey was concerned about: “The child must be taught to count things and to find out the various processes experimentally in the concrete, before he is given any abstract rule, or is put to abstract exercises.”

So…what is the antidote to instruction that deadens the mind? Allowing students to play with mathematics, developing conceptual understanding through the use of concrete manipulatives, students inventing their own understanding BEFORE the teacher provides an abstract rule.

Does this sound familiar? It should! This is exactly what the 2023 California Mathematics Framework (CMF) is recommending. The benefits of this sort of instruction, says the CMF, is equitable instruction that allows ALL students to learn meaningful mathematics. Unfortunately, despite more than 130 years of knowing exactly what math instruction should look like, we are still struggling to make it happen in every classroom today.

I have recently come across two fantastic existence proofs of the great results that are possible if only we were finally able to fully implement the recommendations of the CMF.

First, at the school level, is this article about a school in Wisconsin that increase their math achievement over the course of EIGHT years from fewer than 40 percent of their students who were proficient in mathematics to 80 percent of their students being proficient.

Second, at the state level, is the story of how Alabama became the only state in the nation where 4th-grade math scores are higher now than they were in 2019, before the pandemic.

Please take the time to read both short articles. Be inspired by the simple and discrete steps Wisconsin and Alabama implemented to create the change. Be challenged by how long it took both states to see the desired results.

In a nutshell:

• Meaningful change takes a long time for the results to start showing up
• All partners must play active roles in changing math instruction for the better.

• • District leaders must invest the time and resources, while also providing patience and grace for teachers to make the desired changes in their classrooms.
  • Site leaders must be intimately involved in the professional learning their teachers are receiving, so the leaders can support teachers, remove barriers, acknowledge growth (more than just test scores).
  • Mathematics instructional coaches need to provide ongoing math-specific coaching in the classroom, so teachers can practice new instructional practices under the watchful and supportive eyes of the coach. Coaches should be ready to provide demonstration lessons.
  • Teachers must remain curious to learn more about the required improvements in math instruction. And humble enough to UNLEARN things that used to be true, but no longer are.

• Math instruction needs to be fundamentally upgraded:

• • Concrete manipulatives should be commonplace for students to develop a conceptual understanding.
  • Students must be provided opportunities to actively engage in exploration to invent their own strategies and solution methods  prior to being introduced to abstract algorithms. (Read this blog post about the lesson framework that makes this happen every day.)
  • Students should participate in frequent academic conversations with their peers to construct mathematical arguments and critique the reasoning of their classmates.
  • Students need access to teachers with deep understanding of the very mathematics they are teaching.

Wisconsin and Alabama prove to us that a rejuvenation of exciting math instruction is possible! We have been clamoring for change for a long, long time. In 1825…TWO HUNDRED years ago…Warren Colburn described good math instruction in a manner that could have been plucked directly from our recent math framework! I end this post with his thoughts:

“It is necessary to furnish occasions for [students] to exercise their own skill in performing examples, than to give them rules . They should be allowed to pursue their own method first, and then they should be made to observe and explain it, and if it was not the best, some improvement should be suggested.”

Let’s get to work!

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