Bringing Taekwondo Into My Math Class

This summer, my 3.5 year old started taking taekwondo and as a mom it's been amazing to watch her practice, grow & have fun. It has also been inspiring, as a teacher, to watch her classes & her teachers as they teach, so much so that I wanted to write down some of my thoughts on here, as we begin to (slowly) get ready for the next school year.

The first thing that is evident in every single class that she has participated in is that the students and the teachers are having fun. There is joy! There is seriousness! There is laughter! There is learning happening! Every single class also has multiple teachers (two sometimes even three or more) and at various times in the 30-40 minute lesson, there are whole-group activities, small group activities, teachers moving between different groups, sometimes one-on-one practice happening and even though it is clear to everyone who is what color belt, there is no stigma in being a "lower belt" and it is just lovely to watch. As a parent and as a teacher, I so appreciate the magic that is happening! Students progress is celebrated. There is always clear instruction happening. Students are not told what they can't do, but rather they work toward what they can do. Just the other day, a student was doing something other than what the instructor was focusing on (my daughter's class consists of 2-4 year olds so focusing is something always being worked on), and the master turned it into an activity that the whole class would do and thanked the student for thinking up this drill. There are belt tests and ceremonies and not one single standardized test or bubble sheet to fill out. Every lesson really is just lovely to watch.

I want all of my classes to be that next year! I want fun. I want joy. I want seriousness. I want growth. I want laughter. I want learning to happen. Every. Single. Day. I know that there are differences. There are some things that really are beyond my control - class size, content, etc, and teaching Algebra 1 to 8th graders is not the same as teaching taekwondo to toddlers, but good teaching pedagogy is good teaching pedagogy, and I want to be the best teacher that I can possibly be! So, what can I do?

As I begin to plan for year seventeen in the classroom, the themes that I keep being drawn to are joy, fun & laughter. It is so easy to get bogged down by the million little things that make our profession hard - lack of time, lack of resources, lack of respect for our role as professionals... but no job, especially teaching, is sustainable if we cannot find the good in the everyday. I want to think more about ways I can bring the same energy to my math classes because I want joy. I want fun. I want laughter. I want growth. I want learning. Every Single Day.

What I Read This Month - June & July 2023

My favorite form of self care as a teacher and as a mom is reading. I love reading for fun but I also love reading to learn new things. Apparently I forgot to share my June & July book lists to here they are, as well as my five-star reads from each month, in no particular order:

Top June Books:

1. How Do I Un-Remember This?
2. Stories From The Tenants Downstairs
3. Fourth Wing

Top July Books:

1. Yellowface
2. The Better Half
3. Banyon Moon

In July, I also surpassed my Goodreads 2023 Reading Challenge goal of 52 books, which I am pretty proud of. I've done this challenge every year since 2015 and I hope to match (or surpass) last year's total of 100 books, but we will see. 

As I was walking around doing errands yesterday (and probably listening to the Bad on Paper Podcast (which I highly recommend if you are a reader) I was thinking about what is it that I like about reading so much and here are a few of the things that I came up with:

• I love all the lives & places that I get to explore and be a part of in books
• My over-stimulated mom brain loves the sense of peace and quite I get when I read
• I love having a small goal to read one chapter (or even one percent) and meeting that small goal every day
• It's relaxing & fun to me
• It gives my introvert-self something to naturally talk about since I am always reading something new

So far I have finished two books this month and neither have wow-ed me, but I am really liking my current read and am pretty sure that it will be my first five-star book of August. Happy reading!

Teacher Summer Camp aka the MfA Summer Think, Part 2

Like almost all of the teachers & moms that I follow on social media, I cannot believe that it is already August. Luckily here in New York City we still have more than a month of summer break left. I didn't want to much time to go by before reflecting on the rest of my MfA Summer Think experience. 

My first splash session was on creating our Teacher Bucket List. Not only was the session being facilitated by the amazing Brian but the description had me hooked right away - "Close your eyes and envision your perfect lesson. Eliminate all limitations placed on you by your school, administration, the DOE, and just dream. What are students doing? What are you doing? What does the room look like? Are you even in a room? What do you feel? How do the students feel? This workshop will make space to explore such imagining. Join us in rethinking our teaching, classroom, schools, and careers possibilities. By dreaming big, together, we will reflect on what matters most to us and create our Teacher Bucket List: a list of things we want to accomplish as a teacher before leaving the profession. The list will be concrete and aspirational, and get us to imagine what could be beyond what’s in front of us. It will reflect what matters most to us and the teacher we hope to become in the years ahead. All are welcome."

Check out my list on the right, which I have already started to use as I begin thinking of my 2023-2024 goals, which I hope to write about in the coming weeks before the new school year starts.

My second favorite splash session was on KenKen Meditation & Exploration where we did KenKen together & talked about ways to use it with our students.

My other splash sessions included How to Color War Your Classroom where we did summer-camp-like activities & games that we could use with our students to infuse camp joy into our classrooms and as someone who has never gone to summer camp, I loved the vibe it gave me and was inspired to try some new things in my advisory this upcoming school year.

Lastly, for my last splash session, I broke out of my algebra comfort zone & connected with my geometry roots in Fun with Flags! where I used a compass, ruler & Desmos (always) to play around with geometric constructions, which is something I do not do a lot of as an Algebra 1 teacher.

In addition to all of my sessions, some of my other Summer Think traditions included getting stamps in our Summer Think passport, starting our days together as a whole community and practicing mindfulness, doing math together and meeting new people in the MfA community, MfA pizza (obviously),and closing circles and ceremony. Considering that this was my 6th Summer Think, I also signed up to (potentially) help plan out next year's Summer Think, which I think would be a nice way to step up my MfA Summer Think game. Lastly, on a side note, our Deep Dive group has reconnected together via What's App because we had gotten so close over our three days together, which is just another reason why I am #MfAProud and so lucky to be a part of the amazing community of STEM teachers.