Chris Colley 0:07

Welcome everyone. Here we are, another episode of Shift Ed Podcast coming to you. Now, as you know, the new school year has begun, and I always find one subject really needs more attention because it's a big subject. Uh we put a lot on it. Um and I want to know kind of like a kid's perspective. So I have Zach Champagne here with me, who is a math educator, uh, an amazing thinker in math. Just had this new great book, Curious Kids in the Math Classroom. Um, I'll put the link in the in the descriptor so you guys can go and have a look. Um but I really wanted to dive into the role of trust, the student voice, math identity, um, math trauma. Maybe we won't go into math trauma, but you know, the anxiety that comes around math. Zach, I really appreciate your time and I've been so looking forward to jumping into this topic with you because it is, as I said, one of those subjects that even from a very young age in elementary, the stress level seems to like amp up like every day. Can you tell me though, before we start that, like a little bit about like how how did you become so interested in how we think like mathematicians?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah, yeah. Well, first off, thanks for having me, Chris. I'm so excited to be here and excited to be in the ears of your guests right now. This is uh looking forward to a fun conversation. I mean, I've been in teaching math now and in different ways in different spaces for nearly 30 years, which feels weird to say as we age, but I've you know, I have to acknowledge that I began my career mimicking what I thought math class was like, which was the teacher shows me what to do, and I practiced that lots and lots of times. And so I had my kids do that, my fifth graders in 1998 when I first started teaching, and I mimicked what I thought math class was supposed to be like and quickly realized that like no one was very happy in that situation, right? Like I didn't feel great, the kids didn't feel great. And so for me, it felt like I really wanted to rethink what math class could be. And I was lucky to be surrounded by a lot of really uh smart folks who were doing big thinking in that time. When in the States at least, we we called those reform-based math curriculums. So as we started looking at curriculum materials where it was like, you know, a little bit different than the way a traditional math class would go. And that's I learned to teach using the investigations and number data and space curriculum. And that changed the way I think about the teaching and learning of math and was really kind of a powerful thing for me. And so, you know, throughout those iterations, I've done a lot of thinking about how we get kids talking, how we get kids listening to each other, how we get teachers to listen better. Um, and most recently, I've been doing a lot of work around curiosity and how we can leverage curiosity as a way to get kids to talk more in math class and to be a little bit more engaged in math class, maybe to be a little bit more motivated to want to solve problems in math class. So yeah, it's kind of a quick overview of iterations of as how I've grown from a very traditional teacher who learned as a student in a traditional way and then reshaped my thinking over time.

Chris Colley 3:19

Yeah. Talk a little bit, maybe drill down a little bit more on how did you approach changing your mindset behind math? Like, like I'm sure there are multiple experiences that that started to lead you towards less of me and more of them involved in how we go approaching, you know, math education.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Wow, it's such a good question. That and I have to be honest, it was the sort of first question I wrestled with as a teacher, which was like, how do I make this less about me and more about them? Right. Like I felt like in other subject areas we were a little bit more, whatever the term you want to use is constructivist, problem-based, whatever it is, right? Like, you know, we are reading books together and author and studying the author and learning all these things in my classroom in elementary school at the time. And then in math, it was like, well, now I'm gonna stand up and show you what to do. And it's sort of thinking about how do I get kids more involved in this? How do I make it more problem-based? How do I make it, how do I honor what they bring to the table? And so it began with how do I get you to talk more? Like, how do I get you to share your ideas in math class? And and that meant me stop talking a lot, right? That's step one. And then also like that comes back to you mentioned math trauma at the top. We have to, we have to acknowledge that like even as early as second, third grade, kids are bringing baggage to the classroom on day one. And if we don't build a space that is that feels safe for them, that feels like they they can be vulnerable, I can ask you what you're thinking about all day long and they're not gonna share that, right? Like I can ask you to turn and talk and tell your neighbor, and they're not gonna share an unfinished idea with it in a space where they don't feel safe, right? And so it began with classroom community. I talk about this in the book a lot, but also I think any initiative that you do really has to begin and end with centering the humanity of the young people in the room, right? It had to begin and end with their experiences and what they bring to the table and honoring all of that. And when you do that, I really found that that was a way to get kids to start to talk a little bit more. Right. And when they talk a little bit more, they're willing to start listening to each other a little bit more, right? Right. And that started the spiral for me. That started the sort of like, all right, now we're scratching some itches. Kids are talking in class that things are getting a little more interesting. It allows me to show up as a curious learner. And when I don't know how you're gonna solve a problem, I want to listen to what you're doing and learn about how you're solving it. So that was kind of like the iteration for me was like, I want you guys to talk more, but I got to figure out how to get there. And it started with a safe space.

Chris Colley 5:43

Kind of like letting a bit of the control down and starting to trust your learners a little bit, right? And and having them feel that you trust them with their thinking processes. What were some of those concrete things that a teacher could start with of building that trust with their students so that they are more willing to take a chance at I'm gonna put my hand up and maybe it's gonna be wrong, but I'm gonna try. Like where you slowly inch a teacher towards that a little bit less away from the control of you know, the lesson, the worksheets, the test, the lesson, you know, like that cycle of that cycle we all know too well. That fun cycle sometimes for some people.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Yeah, yeah. Um, so I think uh, you know, there's two, there's two things we have to do. And one of them I think as educators and math educators specifically, I think we're all pretty good at. And that first is naming the thing, right? Naming that like we mistakes allow learning to happen, and we have these things on our wall that are like, you know, it's it's okay to be wrong. And that's what that's when that's when real thinking happens. And we have all we say these things in in math classes a lot. Where I where it's been my experience and and for me as well in my early years, where I didn't follow up was like actually doing that and showing that. So, like, you know, there's a really great routine called my favorite no that people will use, right? Let's look at a an incorrect solution and dig into it and figure out why, you know, where it went wrong. Like, that's a great way to model that like we do value mistakes in this class. So it's it's beginning with saying the words, acknowledging that we want, we want you to feel okay to be wrong, but then you gotta follow up with that. You gotta show them that. And that, you know, one other thing I think a lot about is like when when we make mistakes in class, like as teachers, like how we react in those moments shows them how we really feel. So like if I make a mistake on the board and a kid catches me and I'm like, oh, I meant to do that, it's no big deal, whatever. Like, you know, like they're like, no, it's not okay to be wrong enough. I'm like, oh my gosh, thanks for catching that. Like I really did, you know, I gotta you you showing up as someone who can make mistakes is a way to really let them know that this is a place where, you know, we're we're gonna really dive in and and honor that unfinished thinking, right? So, so for teachers tomorrow, like not only saying it, then modeling when mistakes happen, that that was awesome and that was fun. And we're gonna dig in and like making everyone feel like that's the way that's gonna go. And so another thing I talk a lot about is like um modeling our own uncertainty. So showing our kids things that we feel not good at. So for me, for example, is I'm really classically bad at the the not games, you know, they're like a little, they're like a piece of rope and a piece of metal, and you have to get the ball to go through the thing. Can't do those. And so I ordered a couple of them and I just sat at my desk in the morning and would just play with them. And I don't think I ever finished one of them, but I my kids get to watch me trying to do something that I couldn't do. And I think that's another way we can very quickly teachers can show them that like we're gonna do hard things in here together, and there are things that I can't do, and that's okay. And and I'm gonna model that uncertainty for you. So that's I think it's a small thing we can all try tomorrow to do that.

Chris Colley 8:58

Absolutely, absolutely. And I love the modeling idea that we have to show students, you know, that there are things that happen inside a classroom that we can't control, but we're gonna support one another. And I think that also kind of leads into your trust aspect too, that yeah, because they see your vulnerability, they don't mind so much if you see theirs, and it's kind of opens those doors up a little bit that you know that takes time, right? And that's where you start at this beginning of the year, right? Like, yep. Like, do you jump right into math at the start of the year or or do you work on those kinds of things first so that you get the mindset built before you know we get into October, November, where you do have to start getting into the you know, the meat of the program. But yeah, like how do you typically start a school year so that you start to build that kind of trust that you're that you need from your students?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

That trust is so important. And the trust, like you just said, Chris goes both ways, right? I gotta trust, I gotta trust you with the math. I gotta trust that I believe you can show up and do this problem. I gotta, you have to trust me that I'm not gonna put something in front of you that I'm not gonna put supports in place to be able to do it. So that's really important. My favorite way to start the school year is is to do math, but to do what we might call non-routine problems or something, not a textbook problem, right? Okay. That allows me to do two things. It allows me to reframe what math class can be. So we're not gonna show up and you're not gonna do 30 problems today. We're gonna take one problem and dive in and dig all the math we can out of it. And it'll feel different to you than other math classes you've been in. So one, it shows them that math class can be different. And two, it allows us all to engage in a problem where like the answer isn't obvious. And honestly, I love problems where the answer is the least interesting part because I want to spend time in the messiness and the structure and the way that we're gonna go about solving it. And and so for me, day one, we're doing a non-routine math task where it doesn't feel like math class has probably felt to them before. And it allows us to engage as learners and to get in and kind of dig in. And and at the same time, we're doing some of those, like, let's build some of the routines. So we're gonna learn about turn and talks in that situation. We're gonna learn about times when we have whole group math discussions, times when we have small group math discussions, and we're doing it authentically within a task, but a task that feels a little different. So that's that's my go-to to start the school year off.

Chris Colley 11:20

I love that too. Like different kind of scaffolding for the kids as well, so that it's not always the same routine all the time that we can get locked into at times. Do you know why that is? Like why the structure like throughout educational history has been so tight with math rather than it being playful, like with art or you know, like because it's like it's the foundation of all that stuff, and it's playful, it's creative, it's but we've put such a structure on it to like I don't know, you know, like make kids really have a hard time identifying themselves as a mathematician or as somebody that can think mathematically. Um in your opinion, like what why so? Why does it have to be so structured?

SPEAKER_00 12:05

This is this is a great question. I we we can get into the weeds here. I mean, what one of the things I I think is so interesting about this question is so much of it is our history, right? Like this is the way that I learned it, this is the way I'm gonna show that you learn it. Like I mentioned at the top of the podcast, my experience, right? I was gonna just mimic what I had seen. So some of that holds there, but also I do think you have I do think as a school system, and the states, and it may be this way in Canada as well, but like the states, we put such a structure on there where there's a pacing guide and curricular materials and and a test that comes, and all that stuff feels like we have to race to that and to do that.

Chris Colley 12:43

Totally check, check, check, check, then okay, you should all pass the test now. I did the checks, and like the kids are like, I have no idea what you just did for the last three weeks, you know.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Right, and somehow we haven't learned from history that that doesn't work. That's that structure does not work if if result if if we want our results to be you know high test scores and or kids who are problem solvers or critical thinkers. Like, you can't be a critical thinker if you're just being shown how to do something over and over again. And you know, the other problem with that is that like I show you how to do it in this one instance, and then I slightly change one part of it, and you don't know what to do with it. Like the classic example is like you know, teach you to multiply, but then all of a sudden you gotta multiply a fraction, and you're like, Well, I don't know what to do now, right? Like it's because you only learn this one specific way to think about multiplication. So I can't I can't break out of like what it means to multiply whole numbers.

Chris Colley 13:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

So so I think it just really the historical part of it is is part of it, but also I just think we still have this belief in schools that we have to do this stuff really fast to get there. And people, uh the proverbial people, like all of us in this system together, I know there are a lot of us working against this, but the the proverbial system sees that like to get results, you have to do this thing, even though history doesn't tell us that that actually works. There were there's a saying I once heard that I think applies to us in all of education, and that is if you don't have time to do it right, you must have time to do it twice. And I think that's a it's really applicable here, right? Like we know the right way to do this. We know the way human being learn human beings learn mathematics is through experience, through clay, and and and but we we think we have to do it fast, and so we do it this other way, and we end up doing it again, right? We just do it. Or perhaps even worse, you know, you you create this system where you have the haves and the have nots. Those that actually do work, it works okay that they learn enough to get by, and then you have the ones that just need other support to be able to do it. And so that's historically what I've seen is that you get kids who who do access the math and they continue to go on and take higher level math, and we know what that leads to later on. And then you have those that that struggle with that way of learning, yeah, and they they are created a different path.

Chris Colley 14:53

Yeah, totally. I mean, I did a podcast with uh Peter Lilidal probably about two years ago, and he really put this emphasis on um students having a voice in the classroom similar to what you were saying and getting them to talk. What does that genuine student voice look like in a math classroom? Like what what would it look like for you? Like that you know that students are are struggling, but they're not giving up, you know, like they they they're working it and you can see the theme almost coming off of their heads. Like can you explore that a bit with us of like what is that student voice in a math class really look and feel like?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Yeah, yeah. So let's let's unpack a little bit here too. What I think happens in a lot of traditional elementary and middle school classrooms, which is in these other subject areas, we allow kids to show up as themselves, right? We allow them to bring their ideas to the table. We take a book out and we we say, like, what do you what experiences do you have with uh whatever the context of the book is? And we allow kids to show up as themselves. And then in math class, we say, Here's how you're gonna solve this problem today. You're gonna use this strategy and that's what you're gonna do. And we don't allow them to bring their own selves to that. So for me, what that looks like is creating a space where kids can solve problems in ways that make sense to them, right? And that they feel comfortable trying things that they've never tried before. And this all goes back to community and safe spaces and all that, but allowing them to show up as themselves in math class as well. For some reason, math class was never like that for me. It was like all these other spaces I could show up with myself in a math class. I came in, I did what the teacher told me, I practiced lots of that, and we moved on, right? Rinse and repeat the next day. So letting kids solve problems in ways that make sense to them, let their voice show up. And I use the term student voice broadly to mean not only the things we say in discussions, but the things that we write down. And that's my voice. This is my work. And so thinking about another simple thing that teachers can do right now is just take a look at what's hanging up in your classroom math-wise. And if if you've got student work posted in your classroom, that's awesome. But if they all look the same, we're sending a message to kids that like you have to show up like this in this math class, right? So the work I put up should be different representations, different ways to solve problems so kids see that they can show up as their authentic selves in math class as well.

Chris Colley 17:13

Absolutely. I love that idea too of it like finding a way within their own experiences that they already you can tap into. Like it makes it real for them, right? And I think that that's one of our you know, it's so structured that we don't allow much student voice to get in there and understand their experiences and where they have seen math before, you know. Like, yeah, I helped my dad like you know put tiles on the roof over the summer. Well, there's some math, you know, like just simple everyday things. We kind of oversee the math in it because we think math is all numbers and slashes and watch signs, you know. Procedures and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The story behind math, I guess, more of here's a question for you. Here's the big shift. How do we start getting away from what's the answer to how do you think you might get the answer? Like, is that an impossible bridge to pass over or an impossible bridge to build?

SPEAKER_00 18:13

I I have to believe, as someone who has spent the vast majority of his professional career helping people do just that or hoping to help people do just that, that it's not an impossible bridge. That we can do this as a system. We can do this in a way that every kid can show up in a math classroom and they feel seen and heard, and that they can show up as their authentic selves and they can try to solve problems and they can be all the things that we want them to be. So I don't think it's an impossible bridge. I do think it's a really it's one that requires in a lot of spaces to rethink what math class can be. It requires us to rethink what school can be, right? Like, what is the purpose of school, right? Um in fact, my daughter asked that question, or maybe my I think my wife asked my daughter, or she was seven at the time, what's the purpose of school? And she just instantly said to bring people together or to build community, some version of that. I thought, God, that's exactly right. The whole thing here, like you know, the other stuff doesn't matter. And so, you know, moving from what's the answer to what is your idea or how are you thinking about that? Like, you I think what my message to teachers always is is like you're gonna try if you've never tried that before, if you've only focused on answer getting, no one's mad at you. Like that's what you that's your experience, right? But like if you want to start to try and make this shift, it's gonna take time. You gotta trust the long game. You can't try it once or twice and be like, well, no one spoke, so I can't do that anymore, right? You're gonna it's you're gonna mess up, it's gonna be messy and kind of all over the place for a while, and you're gonna find your way. And once you get there, like, oh man, you what happens is you and your kids now love math time, and it's a joyful experience. And so you mentioned player, it's a playful experience. Like I can, I can come up and just play with these ideas today. I just think you get a little taste of it, and then you want a little bit more and a little bit more, and all of a sudden you're just you rethought what math class can be.

Chris Colley 20:04

Amazing. I love that. And before we go, Zach, again, thanks so much for this. I your ideas are amazing, and I think it's super inspiring for a first kind of beginning of the year cat in the sense that you can set this up, you know, it's not impossible. You gotta put some thought into it, you gotta reorient how you've seen things in the past so that it's more on the kids and less on you up there in front of the classroom saying, Here's what we're gonna do. And a lot of the time, like in our elementary schools, for example, here in in Quebec, we have non-math experts, right? You're a generalist when you go into elementary school, so oftentimes it is that security of the textbook because you question you're exploring, you know, you're figuring it out again at the first time, and forget if you've had math trauma, like you're not gonna deviate one inch from that textbook, right? So it does like we do have it set up to kind of like you've gotta willingly want to switch and change things, you know. And I think that your inspiring words are spot on. And I want to just do one little shout out to your book. So the curious kids in the math classroom, can you give us a little bit of an insight as to what your intent is with this book that you're putting out into the world?

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Yeah. I think for me, everything that I that I did in in the classroom uh when I was there, uh it all boiled down to I was really I was really curious about how young people think about math. And I wanted them to be curious about math. Like that's what I wanted to have happen. So I decided to write this book to tell some stories from my classroom. So that's what you'll get. Each chapter starts out with a story of what happened with some first and second graders, maybe my middle schoolers sometimes. And so I taught a lot of grade levels, and I'm just sharing their stories because kids are the best, right? And then from that, in each chapter, um, I offer a set of curiosity practices, small things you can try tomorrow to just spark. Some more wonder in your math class because what I did not want this book to be was two things. One, what we asked teachers to do, particularly the generalists you're talking about in elementary school, we asked them far too often to change everything. There's some new shift comes in, here's a new set of materials, or a new initiative comes in, here's how you're going to do this whole thing differently. And we never give them enough time or support to do it, and they and these things fail ultimately, right? So I didn't want this to feel like overwhelming. So I wanted it to feel like this is just some things you can try to get kids a little more curious in your classroom. The other thing I didn't want this to become was a checklist, right? You mentioned checklists earlier. We are guilty of this, right? In education. It's like Zach wrote a book on curiosity. Here's here's the checklist now. When I come in your room, I'm gonna check to make sure you're doing these things. And if you're doing those things, your kids are curious. And that's just not how curiosity works, right? Like so I did not work.

Chris Colley 22:50

Magic spell is put over you now.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Totally. Yeah. You're curious. Congratulations. Boom. Boom. Yeah. So you get the story at the beginning of each chapter, and then you get these curiosity practices, these small things. Sometimes they're a routine or a math task you can try. Other times they're things like you know, modeling your own uncertainty, like trying the not game at my desk, right? Like they're just these small things that you can do to help build a classroom where curiosity is at the center. And that felt really special to me to be able to share some of those things from my classroom experiences and some things that I have found that worked for me. Um, and then, you know, when I finished the book, which was a little well over a year ago now, when the when the writing was done until publication happened just about a month ago, um, I wanted to keep the conversation going. So I actually created a podcast called Curiosity Continued, where I took a it's a 10-part limited series where I will, I already have they're being released now, but I I've asked a guest to come on, much like you're doing here, and just talk about the content of the chapter. It's not a rehash. I think about it as like a true companion. So you can listen to the podcast and never have read the book, and vice versa, you can read the book and never have done the podcast. They're companions to each other. But I ask a guest to come on, we talk about the content of the chapter, and we I just really wanted to keep the conversation going beyond my ideas, right? Like I had Dan Meyer on thinking about building tech math tasks with cliffhangers, right? Like he's done a lot of work in that and thought a lot about that were world. So it felt important to have another lens in there. So I'm excited about those. You can listen wherever you get your podcast for that when it's on YouTube. But those are free if you want to do it. You're welcome to also buy the book. I sure would like that as well, if that seems like something you might want to do.

Chris Colley 24:28

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'll put the links to the podcast, to the book, to your site as well. Like, yeah, you got like so much great uh information and resources and just ideas, you know. It starts all up here, right between the two ears, and like since you break that barrier, I mean the world can just it can become open again, you know. Like it just takes a little bit of tweaks. I never I never want to say, like, yeah, you gotta change. No, just tweak this, tweak that. Like it's you can do it, you know. We we're smart people, we're we're educators. Like thank you so much. It's been really uh a pleasure and all the best with the book and you know, keep on changing those mindsets, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Thank you, Chris, so much. Everybody take care. I appreciate this time, it was really special. Thanks a lot.