An Exercise in Actually Practicing What One Preaches about Mathematics
For the past year, as co-founder of The Global Math Project (theglobalmathproject.org), I have invited—cajoled perhaps—thousands of educators across the planet to introduce to their middle-school, high-school, or college-level students a joyous, uplifting, piece of curriculum-relevant mathematics: the story of Exploding Dots (explodingdots.org). And the enterprise has been an astounding success! At the time of writing this article, 4.6 million students from over 160 countries and territories have engaged with our material, including students in New York City using our high-technology web app and students in Zimbabwe discovering binary numbers using pebbles and hand-holes dug into the school yard ground. All has been grassroots. All has been volunteer. All has been based simply on our fabulous global community of teachers and their students believing in mathematics and setting it free to simply shine for its own glorious self. Millions of students let go of their trepidations and emotional woes and tried an “unusual” stance to school-room math. And they shared their experiences on social media. And then I recently caught myself being a hypocrite.
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