To sonic: pay your employees more.

To sonic:

To whom it may concern,

I would like to thank you for your generosity, especially to the teachers of Oklahoma, many of whom work 2 jobs in order to shelter and feed their children.

• National Outreach - SONIC will  match donations to all SONIC teacher projects in 
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• select New Jersey communities
• $11,902,421 DONATED SINCE 2009

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I believe that I have discovered a certain thrill in rectifying the crimes of math education. I ask my students, more than half of them seniors, to provide a “mathematical biography.” Their stories reveal unpleasant experiences with math along the way. Rather than question the quality of the teaching they received, they blamed math itself—or worse, their own intelligence or lack of innate talent. I love the challenge, it's great to work with a group of students who think they hate math or find it boring, and then turning them around, even just a little bit.

The key to this turnaround lies in changing the way math is taught to liberal arts majors. My approach is rooted in discovery-based learning: It focuses on student-led investigations into problems, experiments, and prompts. 

Many adults are proud to announce they cannot add fractions, but they would never share that they were illiterate. 

I like to call my classes "liberal arts math". I aim to intellectually stimulate students, to provide cognitive gains, and get students engaged with math; to nurture healthy and informed

• perceptions of mathematics, 
• mathematical ways of thinking, and 
• the ongoing impact of mathematics 
• not only on STEM fields but also on the liberal arts and humanities.”

     (rather than passively listening to a teacher talk about it at the front of a lecture hall. )

For example, using an exercise from a math 'Games and Puzzles' book, I hand each of my students a pair of scissors, as well as a piece of paper with a scalene triangle (i.e. all 3 sides are different lengths.) drawn in the middle of it.  

I then challenged them to cut out the triangle using only a single straight cut. When they look baffled, I tell them they could fold the paper any way they pleased before cutting it.

They were having a true mathematical moment. That is, they were deeply engaged with a puzzle that made sense to them, and they were enjoying the struggle. 

They were feeling what anyone who loves math feels,

• the pleasure of thinking, 
• the pleasure of wrestling with a problem that fascinates. 

I told the students to think about the scalene triangle over the weekend and to try it at home. Over the weekend I started to get emails from some of them, expressing the excitement they felt when they solved it!

I understand that drilling is important, too. I want my students to memorize and know basic facts, but I want them to discover those facts (I help by asking meaningful questions). If a student truly learns something, then they understand what the fact, or theorem means, why they're important, and where they come up in the real world.

If we only teach conceptual approaches to math without developing skill at actually solving math problems, students will feel weak. Their mathematical powers will be flimsy.  It's like in music. If all we do is teach technique, no one will want to play music at all.

Math should be taught as a both an intellectual discipline and a creative endeavor—where math is made, not just discussed. 

As with any game, or playing music, or making a piece of art, it’s doing the real thing that’s inspiring. My students are actually making mathematics—in many cases, for the first time in their lives. And they’re loving it. And why wouldn't they? It’s a joyous, glorious experience. At every level. Little kids can make math. It may be the mathematical equivalent of finger painting, but it’s still math.”