People’s reactions when I tell them that I hold a degree in mathematics are varied. Some people are surprised, some are impressed, some are a little presumptuous (“oh, so you’re going to be a teacher?”), but there is one response I get that is far more common than the others. “Oh boy, I could never do that! I am so not a math person, I’m terrible at math!” It’s one thing to admit it; it is quite another to wear it as a badge of pride. Math is a fairly unique subject in this regard – people are much less likely to walk around announcing that they are just NOT a literary person and that they are terrible at reading. Or that they are just NOT a history person and can barely recall important events of the past. Tell people that you are terrible at spelling or grammar and you’ll likely get a reprimand for being delinquent in an important professional skill; tell people you are terrible at math and suddenly you’re part of a big club.

I read an article today titled “Why Do Americans Stink at Math?”  by Elizabeth Green, adapted from her upcoming book “Building a Better Teacher” (I highly recommend the article to other math teachers, and I intend to read the book once it has been released). The article highlights the differences between the United States, whose math scores are at best mediocre, to Japan, whose math scores are consistently high (see the OECD 2012 PISA  results). The biggest difference between the American education system and the Japanese education system was that Japanese teachers spent a lot more time on professional development. It’s very common for teachers to watch and critique each other’s lessons, and there is a significant amount of emphasis on teachers, particularly those teaching at the elementary level, to truly understand the math that they are teaching. The funny part is that Japanese teachers have adopted their methods for teaching from standards proposed by an American organization, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). So why aren’t these same American principles being applied in American schools?

For some reason, the American education system is resistant to change. The introduction of the Common Core, for example, has some people (and teachers) angrier than a moose stuck in maple syrup (trust me, I’m Canadian). “What’s wrong with the current standards?!” they cry, “I learned math that way and I turned out fine! My kid should learn math that way too!” Never mind, of course, that many of these people will likely turn around and begin to talk about how they are “just not math people.” The fact is that these teaching standards of olde are crippling our students’ mathematical imagination and intuition, leading to a new generation of Not Math People, and it is proving very difficult to change the standard due to the lack of support to teachers. Policy makers can jump up and down all they want demanding that teachers teach creatively, that they use more technology, that they inspire their students to think critically, that they come up with creative/fun/applicable assignments and projects; the fact is, without also demanding additional support and professional development for these teachers, the teachers don’t know how to do what is being asked.

“But wait!” you say, “They’re teachers! They chose teaching because they’re good at it! Surely, with a little hard work, they can come up with these things independently.” Don’t forget, though, that these teachers went through the same elementary and secondary education that you did. This is the only teaching they know, and they are given very little time in the year to work to improve it. From Green’s article:

[In Finland], as in Japan, teachers teach for 600 or fewer hours each school year, leaving them ample time to prepare, revise, and learn. By contrast, American teachers spend nearly 1100 hours with little feedback.

American teachers frankly don’t have the time to develop and revise their plans as much as they should. There is a prevalent mentality that teaching is an innate skill – you can either do it or you can’t – much like mathematics. Obviously, if teaching is an innate skill, we really shouldn’t have to teach our teachers how to do anything…right? From Green’s article again (I really love this article):

Most policies aimed at improving teaching conceive of the job not as a craft that needs to be taught but as a natural-born talent that teachers either decide to muster or don’t possess.

If we don’t find a way to give teachers the support they deserve, there’s no way that teaching in America is going to change any time soon. Perhaps we are simply doomed to be a nation of Not Math People.