Welcome to Get More Math

Derek:   0:01
Welcome to the get more math podcast, where we support teachers in their quest for long term student gains. This is a podcast for teachers to share their passion for math education, learn best practices from experts in the field and swap ideas for student success. This is community. This is Get More Math.  

Derek:   0:24
Hi, my name is Derrick Maxson and I'm the president of Get More Math. I'm here with Josh Britton, who is the founder of Get More Math and we're here to introduce to you the Get More Math Podcast. Josh, would you tell everybody who's listening today to this first podcast a little bit about where we're going? What's the Get More Math Podcast going to be all about?

Josh :   0:43
Hello, Derek and thank you. We are concerned, as many educators are that with the changing scenarios in which we find ourselves, we're having to sort of reinvent what we're doing so that kids can still learn something and gets can still make long term gains. We'd like to facilitate the conversation and help carry the community, so we intend to bring in other teachers who are experimenting with different ways to communicate with their kids ways to teach lessons. Let's find out what's working and let's share it around.

Derek:   1:15
So just just give us a little bit of background about you and where this is coming from from your heart. 23 years ago you began your career is a math teacher. Why did you decide to become a math teacher?  What's driven you all these years?

Josh :   1:28
I got into teaching because I love kids, and that first year of teaching was in a lot of ways. It was wonderful because I had that rocket fuel of youthfulness and energy and passion. Primarily, I was working with ninth graders who had done fairly poorly in 6th 7th and 8th grades. And now,  they started to do better. They started maybe to get some work done, passed a few tests, and I would say that's primarily because they responded to my relational outreach. They knew I cared, and so they began to care. So the first year went really well until the day I gave the final exam. The results were totally disheartening. I didn't see this coming. Most of my students failed, and some of them failed miserably. What I learned that day,  that late night frustrated creating those exams was that long term attention is a huge challenge for all teachers and math teachers in particular. So that really began for me a sort of career long arc of working towards making sure kids didn't just sort of, I don't know, clear a bunch of hurdles or jump through hoops, but actually learn a significant content, a large body of content in mathematics.

Derek:   2:49
Well, that journey has brought us to today and Josh with your experience and with helping teachers all over the country to teach math to kids. What's your word for teachers today and the challenges they're facing with school closures and remote learning?

Josh :   3:04
It's fascinating to me. Derek, too, take the clock and roll it back a couple of months and ask myself what matters most in education? What what what's the core value for teachers?  The thing of greatest importance, in my opinion, is that teachers love students. You can have all kinds of techniques and strategies. But if you don't deeply care about your kids, it's gonna show. Gonna show in your first year. It's gonna show over your career and you won't. You won't make us much of a difference, but but here's where it gets interesting. That's what I would have said a couple of months ago. But right now I find myself wanting to add to that message. Yes, at your core, you need to love students, and I know you do. If you're listening to this podcast, they they matter deeply, to you. But I want to say one more thing now that's almost as important, which is to take care of yourself. Love yourself, and what I mean by that is, as you think about surviving these things, times of isolation and delivering services to your students remotely. I would encourage you certainly to do the things that are good for you. But then also to to actually lower your expectations in terms of what you'll be able to accomplish. This, especially in the immediate future with your kids in a remote learning environment, you may be accustomed to moving at a particular pace and getting kids to really understand a certain amount of content. I'd like to encourage you to just right now, anticipate a smaller body of content for new material and also maybe a smaller body of retained content as well. So instead of learning tons of new stuff and retaining tons of stuff, maybe we think let's learn some new content and retain some of the content that's gone before. I'm a pragmatist. I want high, high expectations. But I think that's important, that we set our sights a little lower than usual so that we don't overwhelm ourselves and our students and that we exercise self care.

Derek:   5:12
So that leads us to today. And today we're in a time of incredible challenge for teachers and for students. And at Get More Math with the Get More Math  Podcast, we want to resource teachers to be able to succeed in helping their students to achieve gains and to retain those gains over time and to keep the educational process going. So each week we want to present ideas of what's working and maybe even what has been tried and isn't working there, but it might work for you in your context. So as we begin the Get More Math Podcast, we invite you back each week where you'll hear from another teacher and how they're working through these challenges today. Please subscribe online wherever you get your podcasts, leave us to review. tell other people out there that this resource is available for them. Thank you very much for listening and come back next time for the Get More Math Podcast.