“What do you think?” I asked. Dylan is one of the many typically curious students in my Honors Algebra II class, and today he wanted to know about the abbreviation for natural logarithm - ln. “Why not nl?” he asked. For the next five minutes, we went down the rabbit hole, touching on language, communication and the role of history in mathematical notation.
In fact, ln derives from the Latin logarithmus naturali; in Latin, the foundational language of mathematics, the modifier comes after the noun, just like in Spanish and other Romance languages. It was a glorious classroom conversation, demonstrating how students asking great questions can lead to great learning even outside the main topic.
“What do you think?” Over my 14 years in the classroom teaching high school math, these four words have become my class motto, most frequently used as a gateway to get my students wondering: “How can we find out?”
On the face of it, math does not seem dangerous. However, over the past few years I’ve felt a previously foreign emotion in my Texas classroom during group discussions: Fear. I am fearful of reprisal when those wonderful moments of deeper learning occur, like with Dylan and his classmates. What if the answer to the question (“What do you think?”) leads us to a conversation about the more controversial parts inherent in the history of the sciences, like when Galileo was convicted of heresy by Pope Urban VIII for stating that the Earth revolves around the sun. Might these discussions get me in trouble with his parents, the principal, or worse? I’m not the only teacher to struggle with such fear. If I am afraid of my place of work, why would I want to stay at this job?
In 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott created a task force to examine the statewide teacher shortage problem, hoping to investigate why it exists and what policy changes might fill the gaps. Here’s a good starting point: In a Charles Butt Foundation poll conducted among nearly 1,000 Texas teachers in 2021, 68% said they have seriously considered leaving the profession in the past year, and the majority, 84%, reported feeling undervalued in a profession into which we pour our passion. Similarly, a Texas American Federation of Teachers survey of 3,800 of its members found that 66% of educators throughout Texas said they have recently considered leaving their job.
What would help? I believe that a necessary first step is an emphatic statement of support for public education from our state’s leaders. Without it, confidence in the expertise of teachers will continue to erode statewide, compounding the teacher shortage crisis. This includes clarifying Senate Bill 3, which limits how teachers can talk about topics like race and slavery, thus creating widespread confusion among educators. How can I allow those wonderful class discussions to flourish when I am worried that I might actually be breaking the law by pushing for deeper student understanding of important concepts?
Teachers like me shouldn’t be afraid to practice our craft by posing thought-provoking questions to our students. With the onset of Texas’s 88th legislative session, I call on our governor to create a clear and powerful public relations campaign in support of public school teachers, underscoring our expertise in educating students like Dylan. Media outlets take their cue from the messages that come from the governor’s office, and a strong statement of support would counteract the persistent negative depictions of our school’s public servants, all of whom are focused solely on student success.
My classroom is not the battleground for any hot-button political issue. It is a nurturing ground for learning. Abbott can, and should, speak to everyone in our state, avowing his respect for teachers’ expertise in child development and classroom instruction. This would galvanize us to teach without fear when we are fomenting a lifelong love of knowledge and learning in our students. All students need to feel comfortable to ask questions like, “What do you think?”
As for why Latin was originally the foundational language of mathematics, “What do you think?”
Lance Barasch is a high school statistics and calculus teacher at the Townview School of Science and Engineering in Dallas ISD. He is a Teach Plus Texas Policy Fellow.
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