Math Identity

Leatham and Hill (Exploring our Math, 2010) talk about peoples' (students, teachers) beliefs and attitudes about math as something that is generally more complex than we realize.  They have devised a series of activities to help students think about their own relationship to math as well as their beliefs about math.  Following up with whole class discussions is meant to shed light on the variety of perspectives about math. The intention of the reflection and discussion is to help "expand our beliefs about math and...reinforce the idea that math is creative".  As teachers, becoming more aware of how our students perceive math can help us design our classroom and lessons to empower rather than disempower students.



I like the thought of having an explicit discussion about math and our relationship to math with our students.  Although the researchers looked at middle school students, I am sure the same kinds of discussions (or some modification) can be had at the intermediate elementary school level. For myself, I am not sure I would call it an "identity" as much as a relationship. Identity seems more fixed than relationship and certainly I hope that our relationship (my relationship!) with math can improve.