The 2021-22 school year was probably my least creative year ever as an educator. Coming off an extremely challenging year of teaching from home, I wasn’t motivated to create or innovate, well, anything. It was definitely a “get through it” kind of year. I didn’t really change or create much of anything, and halfway through the school year I was mentally over it. Lessons were not interesting or new, and I’m sure it showed in my day-to-day demeanor.
One of my favorite things to do in the teaching profession is to create lessons. I find it very fulfilling to create something new, implement it with my students, see if it works, then make it better. Sometimes it goes great, sometimes it fails, but there is always the satisfaction that I created something and learned from it. None of that happened during that school year, and it had a very negative affect on me. Going into summer break I had one goal in mind: maximize my salary!
Not what you thought I would say, huh? Well, after 18 years I was still not making the maximum salary based on the IUSD Salary Schedule, and my financial brain was very sad about it. I still needed 6 graduate credits to finally max out my salary (the glorious “BA + 75” column), so I turned to the best place possible: Idaho State University. ISU offered some online book study courses that were interesting, cheap, and relevant to my current teaching situation. I signed up for all three possible courses, and got to reading. The three books I studied were:
- Becoming The Math Teacher You Wish You’d Had by Tracy Johnston Zager
- Minds on Mathematics by Wendy Ward Hoffer
- Routines For Reasoning: Fostering the Mathematical Practices in All Students by Grace Kelemanik, Amy Lucenta, and Susan Janssen Creighton
All of them were interesting, and helped me grow as an educator. None of them, however, were very mind-blowing. In fact, there have only been a few times in my career when I was presented with research-based information that made me feel as though I had been doing everything wrong my entire career (thanks a lot, Cassie Erkins!).
After taking a month to finish the courses, I still had some time left in the summer to learn before the daily grind of teaching took hold. Tracy Johnston Zager’s book was great because it had a companion web site that provided links to lessons, creative ideas, and fun YouTube videos that helped spark math creativity in students. While clicking through those resources I somehow stumbled upon Peter Liljedahl’s book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics. I vaguely remembered one of my colleagues presenting a snippet of the book during a Zoom Professional Development during the previous school year, so it looked familiar. I purchased a copy on Amazon, waited a day, then started reading once it arrived.
I don’t think I have read a book faster and highlighted so much in my entire life. I devoured the book in two days, which for me is quite the feat. I would finish a chapter, highlighter still un-capped, and just sit there staring at the wall thinking about how I could use the ideas to completely change my classroom. Every chapter would throw me for a loop. I never knew I could be so excited after reading a research study!
I texted one of my colleagues from school and asked if she was available to talk. We met so that I could info-dump and process what I had read, and a 30-minute conversation turned into 3 hours. She bought the book, and we got to strategizing. I joined the Facebook group and started hunting for free and cheap resources. I read through every post, and started commenting and engaging in conversations, asking questions about materials and implementation strategies. As luck would have it, the same colleague who presented at the Zoom meeting saw one of my posts and invited me to an in-person seminar on how to implement Building Thinking Classrooms.
I went to the seminar, got a decent foundation on how to begin, then headed to my principal to ask for some funds (I needed a lot more whiteboards in my room). He found some room in the budget for a set of Wipebooks, and off I went.
As with any exciting new idea there’s always so much you don’t know about or think through. Mistakes are made, revisions are needed, and some things you just can’t figure out. It was quite a year of learning and growth.
Next up: The Introduction
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