Section NExT

Lunch and Workshop:  Friday, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM 

Title:

Presenter: Debra Borkovitz, Boston University

Abstract: Almost twenty years ago, when I was first diagnosed with a chronic illness, I asked the nurse if the disease could make me be more tired than other people, and then burst into tears when she said, “Absolutely.” I had spent many years believing I was lazy, incompetent, and irresponsible. I never had a syllabus say directly, “It’s irresponsible to get sick,” but that message had been constantly reinforced in school and the workplace. In this workshop, we’ll examine how the “hidden curriculum” impacted our education, uncovering things we learned about our bodies, belonging, community, success, etc. We’ll reflect on the similarities and the differences in the messages we received/constructed. We’ll also look at what implicit messages we learned about mathematics and learning mathematics, and what different messages our classmates who didn’t become math teachers may have learned. 

Then, we’ll consider what messages our current practices convey to our students, what we want to change, and what those changes might look like. We’ll help each other with some practicalities of navigating the many internal and external obstacles we face in implementing change. We’ll have time for individual contemplation and only share what we’re ready and eager to share. Please bring a recent syllabus and a laptop/tablet if possible.

Bio: Debbie Borkovitz is a Clinical Professor of Mathematics and Mathematics Education at Boston University. Before Wheelock merged with BU in 2018, she taught at Wheelock College for 25 years, leading the math program for 20 years, Wheelock came from the 19th-century Kindergarten Movement and had a rich history of active learning, of play as part in learning and of alternative assessment, but the college had no history of a traditional mathematics curriculum. Debbie was the first mathematician ever hired as a full-time faculty member at Wheelock. She has undergraduate degrees in Math and Computer Science from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in Math from MIT, where she studied combinatorics.

Debbie’s teaching is informed by her love of math, her love of students, and her sensitivity to issues of power. She was an out lesbian at MIT during the 1980s, and in 1989 she was one of the founders of The Network/La Red, one of the first organizations in the country addressing domestic violence in queer relationships.

Look at the NES/MAA website under GET INVOLVED/SECTION NEXT https://www.northeastern.maa.org/section-next for information about NES/MAA Section NExT and the spring conference. Pay particular attention to the benefits for those in their first four years of teaching.