This school year we will try a new organizing principle in which there is no facilitator or moderator, by which we mean that there is no “teacher,” “expert,” or “person who knows the answer and how to get it.” Instead, each month, a different member of our math circle community will volunteer to bring a problem, question, game or puzzle for the group to collectively consider. We call those who bring the problem “originators” of the session.

Importantly, for problems where an answer is pursued, the originator does not know the solution (or, at least, the full solution) to the problem. The originator will steer away from the presentation of a specific question or set of questions altogether, and leave the question-generating aspect of the experience completely up to whoever shows up to the session. In any case, after the initial sharing of their seed idea, the originator steps back from the foreground and participates as an equal in the session with everybody else in the room.