This session, presented by a learning community of early career teachers, offers classroom examples of how principles of Ethnic Studies pedagogy can be infused into PK-5 math teaching. We will examine and discuss student work and classroom artifacts that show how teachers have created learning math experiences for children that are culturally relevant, community responsive, and humanizing. We will also discuss how our co-designed teacher learning community has helped us stay nourished and inspired as math educators while we navigate constraining systems of schooling and fraught sociopolitical contexts.
This session is led by three Latine high school mathematics teachers who reimagine care as central to rooting mathematics in humanity. Co-authored with a mathematics education researcher who formerly taught high school mathematics, the session bridges classroom practice and research to highlight teachers’ lived expertise. Guided by Keeling’s (2014) framing of an ethic of care and Gutiérrez’s (2018) call to rehumanize mathematics, we share how care manifests through language, relational trust, and student brilliance. Using pláticas (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016), participants will collectively reflect on how care disrupts deficit framings and cultivates belonging and shared humanity in mathematics spaces.
