{"id":3315,"date":"2026-04-02T08:02:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T15:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/?p=3315"},"modified":"2026-04-14T18:05:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T01:05:42","slug":"26-years-ago-it-could-have-been-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/26-years-ago-it-could-have-been-today\/","title":{"rendered":"26 years ago? It could have been today."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have been a mathematics instructional coach for 15 years. Prior to that I was a secondary mathematics teacher for 20 years. (Yes&#8230;I&#8217;m old.) For most of my career I have observed the importance of teachers knowing&#8230;really, really knowing&#8230;the math they teach. I&#8217;m not talking knowing the math well enough to get the answer, but a deeper kind of KNOWING in which we understand why the solution method works, how to represent that solution method using concrete manipulatives, and can connect a variety of other non-traditional solution methods to the &#8220;traditional&#8221; method shown in the textbook.<a href=\"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/making-math-visual-figure-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-3323 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/making-math-visual-figure-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"332\" height=\"249\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/making-math-visual-figure-1.png 924w, https:\/\/theothermath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/making-math-visual-figure-1-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/theothermath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/making-math-visual-figure-1-768x575.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 332px) 100vw, 332px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A while back, I learned this type of knowing math is called Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT).<\/p>\n<p>As a math coach, while I might be showing teachers how to do the Three Read Protocol or teach in the style of Building Thinking Classrooms, I am ALWAYS also trying to increase the teachers&#8217; understanding of the very math concepts they are supposed to be teaching.<\/p>\n<p>My belief is that the more MKT a teacher has, the more the teacher will LOVE math and students will learn more as a result.<\/p>\n<p>I recently stumbled across this old Message from the NCTM President from 1999. Twenty-six years ago. It could have been written today. Check it out here:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nctm.org\/News-and-Calendar\/Messages-from-the-President\/Archive\/Glenda-Lappan\/Knowing-What-We-Teach-and-Teaching-What-We-Know\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.nctm.org\/News-and-Calendar\/Messages-from-the-President\/Archive\/Glenda-Lappan\/Knowing-What-We-Teach-and-Teaching-What-We-Know\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been a mathematics instructional coach for 15 years. Prior to that I was a secondary mathematics teacher for 20 years. (Yes&#8230;I&#8217;m old.) For most of my career I have observed the importance of teachers knowing&#8230;really, really knowing&#8230;the math they teach. I&#8217;m not talking knowing the math well enough to get the answer, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3315"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3324,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3315\/revisions\/3324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}