Stephen Markey

TED 539 – Mathematics Methods

Dr. Julie McNamara
28 June 2021

Catalyzing Change  CHAPTER 3 & 4 – holistic response

i. I appreciate an overarching goal for school districts is to provide culturally relevant

and responsive instruction – instruction that kids can connect to, evoking that “There
is no achievement gap at birth”, a quote on pervasive inequalities written by Lisa
Delpit, Multiplication is for White People. Instructors need to focus on important
mathematics constructs, make content relevant while incorporate students’ identities
into the classroom content. This will improve the learning capacity of diverse
students. The role teachers can control is what happens in school. Teaching should
center around the interplay of affective and cognitive aspects of teaching and
learning and concern itself with building resilience and academic mindset by pushing
back on narratives.
ii. I learned a lot about equity and how that leads to fairness. Equity isn’t about making
sure that every student should receive the same identical instruction. It is focused on
the outcome and attainment, meeting the child where they are, giving more to those
who need it more when they need it. It is about addressing deficits of support and
catching them up. it also means that students are all able to achieve – and
accommodation needs to be made to promote access and attainment for all
students. Not everyone has been able to learn mathematics at the deep level, and
we as teachers are trying to get them all to the same level. This is based on the real
fact that every student has different backgrounds which have created different levels
of access to opportunity. Equity looks deeply at the institution of education and is
based on accommodating the obsticles and barriers which have historically been in
the way of providing every student the same opportunity to achieve by teaching
effectively, without bias and with curriculum that is meaningful. This is the way that
we will address the achievement gap.
iii. I wonder how the high school I will be working in this fall – San Ramon Valley High
in Danville – addresses equity and access for students. I am eager to understand
the local context and examine whether my new school and school district provides
each and every student the opportunity to access high-quality and rigorous
mathematics instruction. High school mathematics needs to provide equitable
structures to support all students and support all learning, to enable instruction that
is both culturally relevant and responsive, teaching that students can connect to. In
the words of Zaretta Jammond, author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the
Brain, “Cultural responsiveness begins with a stance.”