I was beyond fortunate to have the opportunity to provide professional development to math(s) educators in Australia six times over twelve days in late November and early December 2023 in Brisbane, Melbourne, Bairnsdale, and Sydney. It was one of the best professional experiences of my life and I will cherish every moment.

I realize that this is not an opportunity everyone will have, so I wanted to share what I learned.

I have three big goals for writing this:

  • I want to reflect on and process my own experiences in a place where I can come back and read.
  • I hope that Australian educators might value an outsider’s perspective on what’s happening in Australia.
  • I hope that educators outside of Australia might value hearing about what we can learn from Australians.

 

Australian States And Territories Work In Isolation
In the United States, there are countless math education conferences that happen at the city, county, and/or state level. We also have national math educator conferences like the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics (NCSM). I hadn’t thought much about how important this all is, but seeing what was happening in Australia provided a good reflection point.

In Australia, it seems like the only consistent, annual math educator conferences are at the state level. There do not appear to be any city or county level math educator organizations, or they are dormant or do not have sufficient marketing to be widely known. Their national math education organization, Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers (AAMT), is actually less prominent than their biggest state level organization in Victoria, the Mathematical Association of Victoria (MAV). AAMT used to have a biannual conference but hasn’t had any conferences since the pandemic. This creates struggles I haven’t experienced in the United States:

First, the lack of a strong national math education organization means that there’s very little cross pollination between states. I repeatedly found that math education leaders that everyone loved in one state were virtually unknown in another state. As a result, many educators were unaware of the ideas, resources, and innovations being created. How much better would things be for Australian math educators if they could help each other grow?

This lack of cross pollination is less common in the United States. The most popular math education leaders in each US state are typically very similar. In addition to interactions on social media, I believe this cross pollination happens partially because we see each other at our many annual national conferences and we then share what we learned with others back in our communities. This then amplifies those leaders so that they are better known around the country and get more opportunities to share what they’re passionate about.

This exchange of ideas also helps presenters improve their craft. Virtually everything I do in education has been heavily influenced by something I learned and adapted from someone else. I cannot overstate how much of my successes have come from being able to attend hundreds of conferences and learn both content as well as how to present from other educators. I feel bad for education leaders in Australia who don’t get those similar opportunities.

Something needs to be done at the national level to better connect educators across the country. I understand that it can feel like a national conference might compete against a state level conference. I also understand that the vast geography and how spread out Australians are certainly doesn’t make things easier. However, the consequences of no conference at all are even worse. Something has to be done. Maybe it’s the return of national in-person conferences that now happen annually. Maybe it’s still just state conferences but increased funding to have speakers from other states and territories present. I don’t know what’s best, but I believe that your collective brainstorming will come up with options that are better than what you have now.

Second, I believe that the lack of smaller local conferences makes it harder for emerging education leaders to start their journey and refine their craft. For example, imagine that you wanted to be a stand up comedian and there were no comedy clubs to practice near where you lived. In fact, the only way you could do comedy at all was on a Netflix comedy special. This would be terrible news for you because of course Netflix would want to prioritize the well known, popular comedians over the brand new, unheard of ones. So you may never get a chance. And even if you did somehow manage to get your chance on Netflix, if this was your first time doing stand up comedy, you probably wouldn’t go well.

The first few times I do a presentation, they are so, so rough. I have way too much material. My timing is off. My jokes are not funny. However, by the 20th or 30th time I’ve given a presentation, of course it’s going to be polished. What else would you expect?!

I love having local conferences where I can practice and refine new presentations so that when I present on a larger scale, I’m solid. Most presenters in Australia never get this opportunity. When they make a brand new presentation, they do it once at their state conference and then never again. I cannot fathom that every time I created a presentation, I could only use it once. I invest so much time in my presentations because I know I’ll be able to use them dozens of times. I wouldn’t be half the presenter I am now without the opportunities to try, struggle, improve, and repeat.

Something has to be done to give emerging education leaders more opportunities. Maybe cities like Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, and Sydney can have their own tiny conferences on an evening or single weekend day. That’s how it works where I live. Orange County Math Council (OCMC) has an annual Monday night conference with a keynote and two 45-minute sessions. It starts at 5 pm and ends at around 8 pm. Greater San Diego Math Council (GSDMC) has something similar on a Saturday, once a year. I usually do both conferences with all my new presentations and have maybe 20 or 30 people in the room. Less people in the room makes me feel safer taking a risk. As you can imagine, by the third time I do it, it’s already much better than the first and I feel more confident presenting in rooms with hundreds of people.

This lack of opportunity also creates a problematic cycle where prominent presenters (usually veteran white male educators) are more likely to be chosen to be featured because they’ve gotten the most chances and are therefore more experienced, well known, and polished. So this cycle keeps repeating as they get more practice, get better, and continue to be chosen again and again in the future. At the same time, newer presenters who could be amazing, will struggle to get opportunities to practice and shine in front of a larger audience. Their growth will be stunted.

While Australia’s expansive geography might not ever make this easy to do, education leaders have a responsibility to work together to brainstorm solutions. I believe that the leaders of every national, state, and territorial math educator organization should have monthly or quarterly meetings to coordinate, share ideas, and find solutions. In fact you should collectively form a Mastermind. You’re all better together than working separately.

 

Supporting Emerging Education Leaders
A phrase I kept hearing in Australia was “Tall poppy syndrome“. It refers to the desire to criticize or cut down someone who seems to be too successful or who is bragging too much about their accomplishments, kind of like a poppy that gets plucked from the ground when someone notices it because it sticks out above the rest.

I get that being humble is important, and no one likes it when someone brags too much about their successes. But what are the unintended consequences of plucking poppies? Are these poppies truly being cut down because they were too full of themselves? Or could it be that their successes made others insecure?

Personally, I’m not a fan of plucking tall poppies. I try to live a life where I empower others and help all poppies grow. So while I acknowledge that one way of dealing with a poppy that sticks out is to pluck it from the ground, another option is to fertilize the other poppies around it so that they also grow tall and strong.

When all poppies are tall and strong, none stick out and we all benefit from the beautiful flowers. I believe that there is more than enough room for all Australian poppies to thrive and that Australian math education would be much more successful from actively working to boost each other rather than plucking the ones that stick out.

I think Ramya Deepak captured this perfectly:

Why can’t it always be a #mutualadmirationsociety where we’re commending strengths and encouraging each other to thrive?

We also cannot ignore the associated systemic sexism and racism. Women and people of color are much more likely to be told to stay in their place and plucked as a tall poppy. This is pushback that white men rarely receive, myself included. No one has ever told me to stay in my place because of the color of my skin or my gender.

I wish you could all see yourselves the way I see you. There’s so much brilliance and I wish you were all able to see each other present and learn from each other like I was able to. I implore Australian mathematics educators to shift from a culture of everyone against each other to everyone against the world. The problems humankind will face in the coming years will require all of our best efforts focused in the same direction rather than fighting each other for the scraps that remain.

 

Lack Of Representation
Australia and the United States both struggle to get underrepresented groups presenting and attending educator conferences. To explain what I mean, consider that the people at a venue should roughly match the demographics of the surrounding community.

For example, if children who lived near a school were about 50% people of color and 50% white people, it wouldn’t be surprising to see that its students were about 50% people of color and about 50% white. If instead you saw that it was 90% one group and 10% the other, it would make you wonder why reality was far from expectations.

According to the Australian Human Rights Commission, approximately 24% of Australians are people of color. So, if there was no bias involved, you would expect that about 1 out of every 4 presenters and attendees at an Australian conference would be people of color. It was faaaaar less than that. The same is true in the United States, where approximately 40% of the population are people of color. You almost never see that kind of diversity amongst American presenters and attendees at education conferences.

Groups that have been historically oppressed, both in the United States or in Australia, are not able to level the playing field on their own. If we’re a society that truly believes in equity, we can’t exploit people for centuries and then pretend like everything’s fair now. If you’re wondering what leveling the playing field might look like in education, here are two of my attempts at implementing equitable solutions.

 
In related news, I cannot fathom how a referendum like the Voice did not pass except for continued racism and discrimination. The referendum was literally just three short clauses:

There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.

 
All it was proposing was that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders would get a chance to share their perspective on matters relating to them. It’s absurd that people would not allow them to share their perspective. This reminds me of the saying, “To those with power, equality feels like oppression.”

Almost all experiences in Australia I attended began with an Acknowledgement of Country, which is “a way of showing awareness of, and respect for, the Aboriginal Traditional Owners of the land where a meeting or event is held.” Voting no on the Voice made all the Acknowledgements of Country look like a performative joke that white people say to feel better about themselves.

The Voice referendum failing is shameful and history will look back on this moment with embarrassment.

At a minimum, conference organizers have an obligation to move from “How is it my fault that people of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander descent didn’t apply to speak at or attend my conference?!?” toward aggressively pursuing policies that level the playing field.

I strongly encourage leaders to use the Five Whys framework to explore this question. It might look like this:

Problem: We do not have many Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander presenters or at our conference

Why #1: Why is that?

Answer: Because they did not apply to speak.

Why #2: Why is that?

Answer: Because _________________

Why #3: Why is that?

Answer: Because _________________

Why #4: Why is that?

Answer: Because _________________

Why #5: Why is that?

Answer: Because _________________

If you don’t know the answers to the “Why?” questions, then that’s a big problem too and it probably means that you need to diversify your leadership. This exploration will almost certainly take you to uncomfortable places, but these root causes need to be examined and addressed. Beginning to fix the problems might include recruiting and mentoring underrepresented speaker groups and/or offering additional funding to participate.

I firmly believe that it is critical for Australian math education leadership to explicitly and aggressively support groups like the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Mathematics Alliance (ATSIMA) and their chair, Chris Matthews that work “to improve maths outcomes of Indigenous learners across Australia”.

I want to say this clearly: every state and territory mathematics educator organization has an obligation to proactively reach out to ATSIMA and ask how they can better support them, especially from AAMT at the national level. Just like with supporting underrepresented groups in the United States, it is not enough to simply stop implementing oppressive policies. We have to do the opposite and pursue strategies that begin to repair the harm caused. If we don’t know what those strategies are, then it’s a sign that we need to diversify our leadership, be curious, and incorporate missing perspectives.

I’m going to say this one more time. Don’t go another week lamenting how it’s a shame that Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders are not better represented in the Australian maths educator community. If you’re a state or national Australian maths education leader, reach out to ATSIMA this week and find out what you can do to support them. If you truly believe that your goal is to support all Australian maths students, and not just white ones, this needs to happen yesterday.

 

Integrating Newer Teachers
When I first got to the MAVCON conference, Australia’s biggest math educator conference with over 1200 attendees, it was the first time in years that I was at a major educator conference where I knew very few people. I hadn’t thought about it much prior to that moment, but in the United States I now know so many people at conferences that I’m almost always sitting with a friend. So when that was not the case at the opening keynote, I honestly felt lonely.

Fortunately, Australians are as friendly as everyone says and by the end of the day and into the next, I quickly had my Aussie math family at the conference. However, it made me reflect on how important it is for us to go out of our way to make attendees feel welcomed and included. In those moments, I fully understood why someone might decide not to come back.

This experience made me now believe that I was wrong about something. I used to think that we might have two or three conferences to try and integrate new teachers. What I now believe is that if those connections are not made at the first conference, new attendees will be much less likely to ever come back. We get just one conference attendance to get it right.

If we do not integrate and welcome new attendees, they’re likely to see conferences mainly as a place to learn content (which competes against staying at home and watching stuff online) versus a place that you can also go to make connections and interact with other passionate educators (which is much better in person than online).

I want to say this again for anyone reading this that is about 40 years old or older. When we first started going to educator conferences, social media did not exist. So, we went to conferences because it was the best way to learn new ideas. Along the way, we made friends that became family. Now we go to conferences mainly because they feel like family reunions and less about the learning that happens there.

It is fundamentally different for newer teachers. They came into teaching with social media already existing. So they don’t need to go to conferences to learn because they can do that on their phone for free from their home. So, while there’s great learning at conferences, the one thing conferences offer that can’t be found online is face-to-face community.

If we fail to integrate newer teachers into our community, we may lose them for good. They won’t see a need to go to conferences and maths educator organizations will slowly decline into irrelevance. I know this because it’s been happening in the United States over the last ten years. Fixing this may include ideas such as social events like happy hours or dinners (possibly even discounted for first time attendees). Maybe it means that new attendees can ask to get paired with a veteran buddy with similar interests and experiences that will show them around and introduce them to people at the conference.

I think that when the state and territorial maths education leaders meet regularly, sharing your best ideas on how to do this will give you a rich toolbelt of options.

 

Miscellaneous
Here’s a collection of smaller observations I found interesting.

  • A trend I noticed (from a very, very small sample size) was that presenters who were active on social media were much more likely to reference ideas that came from educators in many countries including Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, and England while those that were not as active tended to only cite other Australians. Could access to a broader set of ideas lead to more diverse resources and better outcomes?
  • In Australia, they allow teachers to teach a subject without any formal training on that subject. They call a teacher in that situation an “out of field” teacher. I’ve never heard of something like that in the United States. As far as I know, unless there’s an emergency situation, teachers are not allowed to teach a subject without passing some sort of subject matter competency exam or taking a sufficient number of classes in the subject… and then it’s only temporary. However in Australia, it’s not uncommon for someone like a physical education teacher to teach a math class or a math teacher to teach an English class indefinitely. That has to be challenging for the teacher, students, and community.
  • As far as I could tell, almost all attendees at MAVCON, Australia’s largest math educator conference with 1200 attendees, were Australian residents. While I did meet people who were originally from Canada and Scotland (shout out to Lorna McClory!), I don’t recall seeing a single person who did not live in Australia besides me. This contrasts with the United States’ biggest math educator conferences which frequently have international attendees. I don’t know if this is good or bad, just different.
  • I want to highlight something I saw at MAVCON that worked brilliantly. Anyone who’s been to an American education conference has likely had the unpleasant experience of trekking across the venue to go to a session, only to find that it was full. Even if you find an alternative session, you’ll likely arrive late and tired. This did not seem to happen at MAVCON thanks to Jacqui Diamond. At MAVCON you had to pre-select the sessions you wanted to go to. This gave her valuable data about expected demand at each session which she could then use to adjust room assignments each day. No one seemed to actually enforce the selections, but because she had access to the data and used it well, rooms always felt like they were 90% to 100% full because presenters were in the right size room. I’d rather have 50 people in a room for 50 than 50 people in a room for 200.

 

Want To Come Speak In Australia?
It’s hard to describe in words how wonderful my time in Australia has been. I cannot sufficiently emphasize how welcoming and gracious leaders like Paulina Sliedrecht (Queensland Association of Mathematics Teachers), Jen Bowden and Mel Savic (Mathematical Association of Victoria), and Darius Samojlowicz (Mathematical Association of New South Wales) were to me. I basically floated across the country on a cloud of happiness. Because of them, I’ve made friends and shared experiences I’ll hold dearly for the rest of my life.

As you might imagine, I was thrilled when they all told me that they would love to connect with other international math education leaders who are going to be in Australia. It was funny to me because they thought international consultants would not want to come all the way out to Australia. However, I know that for most international consultants, presenting in Australia would be a dream come true like it was for me. From a consultant’s perspective, it feels awkward and presumptuous to reach out to organizations on another continent and see if there’s mutual interest.

So, allow me to play matchmaker because it would be amazing if other consultants had an experience like this too. While the timing and demand may not always match up, if you provide professional development to educators (and especially if you are already going to be in Australia), you should reach out to the organizations below to see if there’s mutual interest:

Jen Bowden (MAV in Victoria) – [email protected]
Michaela Epstein (Maths Teachers Circle across Australia) – [email protected]
Darius Samojlowicz (MANSW in New South Wales) – [email protected]
Paulina Sliedrecht (QAMT in Queensland) – [email protected]

If you’re a leader of another Australian mathematics educator organization and would like to be added to this list, please email me at [email protected] and I’ll be happy to update this list to include your contact information.

 

Conclusion
I felt very conflicted about writing these reflections. On the one hand, who the heck do I think I am to spend 12 days in a country and then share my opinions? On the other hand, maybe I can share a perspective that’s missing and especially maybe I can say things that others don’t have the power or platform to say. At a minimum, I hope reading this has gotten you thinking.

There’s no chance that I got this all right. So, what do you think? What did I misrepresent? What questions do you still have? What do you think I got wrong? What do you think I got right? What could I have said better or emphasized more? Please let me know in the comments.

41 Comments

  1. I love how they organize their conference rooms by interest! I wasn’t able to attend 3 sessions at CMC South this year that I was really looking forward to because they filled up immediately! Then I went to a room where there were about 50 extra seats. I wish they would adopt that practice here!

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    • I know, right?! I made a point to go up to Jacqui and personally thank her because I don’t recall ever seeing a conference run so flexibly. It’s worth noting that the conference took place at a university with many unused rooms and lots of differently sized rooms, so that certainly did not hurt.

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  2. love this! so true on so many levels.. sometimes it takes an outsider to make us look inwards! Really thoughtful and considered… I would love to be involved in helping to action so many of these suggestions to take us all to the next level! Thanks Robert!

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  3. I agree with so many of your valid and well considered points. As a first time presenter this year, I do want to acknowledge that incredible and influential leaders in Maths here in Australia were mine and my co-presenter’s biggest advocates. Ange Rogers and Peter Sullivan with words of encouragement, and James Russo and Jane Hubbard in attendance. As we are Queenslanders, Paulina and her team were also fabulous when we presented earlier in the year at QAMT. You certainly raise important points about where to next- and Ange, call on us to support anything we can do to change some of this! I hope to see you and your colleagues out here again, Robert.

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    • Thanks for this, Carly. I’m so glad you’ve been getting the support you need.

      My bigger point is not to say that nothing is being done to support new teachers, but rather that we should all be doing even more to support those that are up and coming, in both the US and Australia. I see the average age at conferences getting older and older and we should all be concerned by that.

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  4. A great read, and plenty of food for thought. Our conversations while you were here, along with this blog post have helped to shed some light on issues that I was probably blind to. I personally haven’t experienced or seen the tall poppy syndrome in action within the Maths teacher community, but it does exist in many other aspects of society, so I could imagine that others may have experienced it. What resonates most strongly with me, is the need for more consistent, ongoing, small scale opportunities for math educators to come together and collaborate. If I follow the 5-why process for why this doesn’t happen, I get to about the 2nd why before I’m like ‘damn, I need to just make it happen!’ Thanks for sharing your perspective 🙂

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    • Thanks for this, Thomas. What was interesting for me is that “Tall Poppy Syndrome” behavior is sort of hidden unless you’re looking for it. In my case, the only reason I noticed it was because I was asking people in every state who their maths education leaders were. I kept being surprised by how there was so little overlap from state to state.

      When I would say, “What about ______________ from the other state?” there were often tall poppy esque responses as to why that person didn’t have traction in the state I was currently in. Much of the time, the pushback seemed more about their personality than their content. This was what made me feel like people needed to work together instead.

      FWIW, I don’t know if Tall Poppy Syndrome is a problem in the USA or not because I don’t have these kinds of conversations here. I’d love to hear if anyone has perspective on that. So, unless you’re intentionally looking for these kinds of conversations, you may not see them.

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  5. The QAMT strongly supports ATSIMA and has been proactive in supporting the amazing work they do. We will continue to do so and continue to support our mathematics educator colleagues of all sexes, races and levels of expertise.

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    • That’s fantastic. I hope every other organization is doing that as well.

      One question I wonder is “How will the kinds of support ATSIMA needs change over time?” The same for all underrepresented groups. I have to imagine needs will change over time and it’s a good reminder for me to always stay curious and connected.

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  6. Thank you so much for these insights. I was at your Sydney presentation – so much gold! I’ve been sharing all of what I learnt.

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    • Thanks Belinda. These are just my outsider’s perspective. Feel free to keep or discard them as needed. Hopefully they can become conversation starters about difficult topics.

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  7. Also MAWA in Western Australia. Australia has a much lower population density than the US, and teachers tend to stay in their own state or territory, and it would be too costly to travel interstate on their own budgets. Also, the syllabus, calculator technology, pedagogy and type of assessment are often different in each state, even though it’s all meant to be based on the Australian Curriculum. I speak from my experience as an educational publisher producing maths textbooks for the different states. This explains some of your observations. When I started teaching, there were regional maths associations, but increasing teacher workloads have put an end to much of that. They still exist though, but organisers are time-poor and it’s all voluntary,

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    • Yeah, everyone kept talking about Western Australia like it was it’s own separate country. I don’t have a great solution to bridge the geographic divide.

      I will say though that not all professional development is centered around “the syllabus, calculator technology, pedagogy and type of assessment.” Sometimes it’s just on general teaching best practices that work with pretty much everything. That’s typically what I focus on.

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  8. Very interesting read, thank you, Robert. It’s always interesting to hear an outsider’s perspective, no matter how short their visit.

    Regarding your comment that there are no “city level” conferences, I wonder if you’re aware of the system of Catholic schools, which fall midway between the State school and Independent (high-fee-paying) schools. They are generally grouped by diocese. In Sydney, the organisation known as SCS (Sydney Catholic Schools) contains about 150 schools (primary and high schools) who work together intensively. We might not have gatherings that we call Conferences, but we have “Network meetings” which are very much like the city-wide conference you describe, with opportunities to network with other Maths teachers across the whole city as well as in smaller groups of schools from nearby suburbs.

    I’ve always worked within the Catholic system, but I suspect that the other groups of schools do much the same, and recently attended a fantastic conference organised by the State system specifically for their “Head Teachers” (ie leaders of Mathematics faculties). Although I don’t work in the State system, I was made to feel very welcome, I made a lot of new connections, and I learned a lot.

    Thanks again for travelling such a long way to visit us here in Australia, and to share your enthusiasm and expertise.

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    • Hi Mandi. I appreciate your kind words.

      Thanks so much for helping me learn more about the system of Catholic schools. I knew basically nothing about that. A few thoughts on what you wrote:
      – That’s fantastic that you’re creating opportunities to share best practices in your network. Kudos.
      – I wonder about whether there’d be benefits or costs to opening it to educators at other schools.
      – I do think mini conferences are a bit different in that there are opportunities for presenters to get practice delivering presentations.
      – I wonder if you’re right when you say “I suspect that the other groups of schools do much the same.” Maybe you’re right and they exist but need more marketing so they’re more broadly known. Or maybe they don’t. If they do, I’d be happy to add them to the blog post if someone gives me their info.

      Thanks again for engaging with me and educating me on the parts I was missing.

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  9. Love, love, love the true and insightful reflections. As many have said, it takes an outsider to provide fresh perspectives that we miss being used to a status quo. I am sure we can reason some of these findings to low population density, geographical distances, pedagogical differences etc but if the pandemic has taught us anything it’s that there are always new ways of doing things and they might be better. Thanks, Robert, for being so generous with your time, knowledge and insights.

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    • Thank you, Ramya. To be sure, these are just my perspectives, not absolute truths. But I hope that they become conversation points which can be used to bring people together, decided if it’s even worth addressing, and the brainstorming the best solutions.

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  10. Out-of-field teaching has been legal in the US since 2015.

    Richard Ingersoll from the University of Pennsylvania) has been researching in this field since the 1990s: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TYkY1MAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

    Among many others, there is also more recent work by Jim (James) van Overschelde at the University of Texas who, with the most incredibly complete data set, has quantified ‘the hidden cost of teacher misassignment’ in Texas.

    I’ll quote from Jim’s paper:
    “In 2015, the United States Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to replace NCLB. ESSA removed the highly qualified teaching requirement in order to give states and school district more local control. Now, federal laws essentially permit schools to assign any teacher to any class regardless of the teacher’s qualifications or expertise for the subject area or grade level being taught. In other words, ESSA legalized teaching out-of-field. However, ESSA does require different student groups to be treated equitably. In other words, it is acceptable under ESSA to assign teachers to teach out-of-field as long as White students, Black students, and Latinx students (for just some examples) are equitably assigned to out-of-field classes (ESSA, Sec. 1111[g][1][B]). States are required to report to the federal government plans that ensure low-income students and students of color “are not served at disproportionate rates by ineffective, out-of-field, or inexperienced teachers” (Sec. 1111).

    Van Overschelde and Piatt (2020) showed this equitable assignment is clearly not happening. They found that Black students, male students, students from low-income families, students in communities other than urban and suburban, and many other groups are significantly more likely to take classes that are taught out-of-field – relative to their White or Latinx, female, and wealthier peers. To determine whether this inequitable assignment of students to out-of-field classes is inequitably impacting students’ academic growth, detailed student-teacher-course-assessment licensure data for millions of students and tens of thousands of teachers from Texas were used.”

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      • Thanks for this, Amie. I appreciate this information and data. By chance, do you have a link to the Van Overschelde and Piatt (2020) paper? I’m curious about how prevalent this is because I had never heard of this happening at any school in Southern California. I’m wondering what the bigger causes of it are. For example, I heard about country (rural in the US) schools which struggle to get teachers and have to make tough choices.

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        • Hello Robert,
          I have been reading this thread with interest. To follow up on Amie’s comment you may wish to look at the OOD/TAS Collective site, https://ooftas-collective.org and the page that lists the collaborators. You will find several from the U.S. including one from Stanford.

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          • This is really fascinating. From what I have gathered, it definitely does happen in the United States, but it seems to be much less common from what I can tell. Either way, it doesn’t seem like something to strive for and I’ll be sure to keep looking for data on this. I appreciate the follow up.

  11. This is so timely and valuable. Everything you have observed I think is what happens in our schools. We are too insular in so many ways then too insecure in the way we follow countries because of “PISA pressure”.

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    • Unfortunately, I feel like the pressure of performing well on standardized assessments is pretty universal. I know it’s a major driver in the United States too. Thanks for reading.

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  12. Loved spending time with you in two states Robert. You may be surprised who the Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander presenters were. We don’t all have a stereotypical look❤️

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  13. Hi Robert,
    Thank you for your reflection on the state of sharing quality maths practice across Australia. A group of colleagues and I arrived at a similar conclusion earlier this year. We created a group and hosted 2 very successful small conferences in Melbourne which sold out like Taylor Swift in a matter of days! We had a waiting list we could not accommodate so plan to recreate this in 2024.
    It’s called The What Works Series and I’d love to chat to you about what we did and our plans for the future of quality maths professional learning.
    For teachers, by teachers and our presenters were practitioners who donated their time. Creativity springs from need!
    Best wishes
    Jeanette

    Reply

  14. Hi Robert,

    I read your blog with interest and while I agree with some of the points you raised, I feel that some of your conclusions have been made with incomplete data. As a Mathematics Educator, I would personally like to make a few comments.

    I am a current board member, Secretary and the immediate past President of MANSW, as well as the NSW Councillor of AAMT.

    To my knowledge – and the other state representatives can correct me if they wish – all state associations and AAMT have an association and working relationship with ATSIMA and Prof.Chris Matthews. Many members of associations, including myself are actually members of ATSIMA. As someone has already pointed out, we shouldn’t fall into stereotypes about First Nations People’s appearance. And yes, a very large number of the education community across Australia are still shaking their heads about the outcome of the referendum.

    AAMT actively supports each state association. As many school find it financially difficult to fund teachers to attend multiple conferences as well as there is no teacher replacements for staff out of school, Mathematics faculty leaders in schools have to make decisions about what conferences and PL they will fund their staff to attend. This is difficult for them and whilst it would be great to have national conferences, should it be at the expense of local state conferences? Not all state conferences are as big as MAV. States like Tasmania and the ACT and NT have much smaller populations and a national conference in their state could take away from the small pool of resources. I know teachers are already talking about what conferences they can/cannot attend next year, due to ICME-15 being held in Sydney.

    Some state associations like MANSW do have regular PL sessions like you described. We call them Teach Meets and they happen online. This way teachers from all over the state can access PL and discussions. The NSW Department of Education also runs ‘Statewide Staff-rooms’ online. It would be nice for teachers to meet up with teachers in neighbouring schools and present ideas, but due to geographical isolation the neighbouring school could be 100km + away. To put it in perspective, the schools in my education network are 40km, 65km,125km and 250km away – and I live 50km in the other direction. So our teachmeets allow people from all over the state to participate. I can send you an invitation to the next one, early in the new year if you would like to contribute.

    MANSW has a great group of early career teachers who run their own teach meet sessions, where they present to each other and share ideas. They are able to build up their confidence in presenting before moving onto presenting at larger events. Holly, who presented with you on Wednesday is an example of teachers from that group. They are a fabulous group of educators. We also invite all Early career teachers, as well as any first time conference attendees to dinner the night before the conference starts, to welcome them and allow them to get to know people before the conference starts.

    One thing that I hoped that you did notice on Wednesday night, when you met with a large portion of the Mathematics Education leaders within MANSW was their gender. There has always been a gender balance within MANSW leadership as well AAMT leadership during my involvement with both organisations, which has been over 25 years.

    Lastly, I would suggest you reach out and have a discussion with the CEO and President of AAMT. You don’t mention either person in your blog, so I’m not sure if you have spoken to them, and I’m sure they would’ve been at MAV.

    Glad you enjoyed your stay and hope to see you soon again in Australia.
    Lee Hyland

    Reply

    • Hi Lee. Thanks for reading and pushing back on my points. I definitely don’t have the full picture. Yes, I did connect with many of the people you mentioned via email after I returned. Your point about judging people by their appearance is also valid.

      I’m sure that there’s a lot I either got wrong or have incomplete knowledge of. Hopefully, it leads to some conversations about important issues.

      Reply

  15. Your reflections are so true and on so many levels. As an English trained Science teacher, also teaching maths ‘out of field’ in South Australia, I miss the collaborative networking opportunities that were so readily available in the UK. At least I get to do this via social media….. but you are correct, many Aussie educators do not seem to realise that there is a whole world of brilliant educators out there who are keen to collaborate and share expertise.

    Reply

    • Thanks Hazel. For what it’s worth, many US educators “do not seem to realise that there is a whole world of brilliant educators out there who are keen to collaborate and share expertise.” I really wish it was different.

      Reply

  16. The timing of this article is impeccable. I’ve had the exact thoughts about conferences in AUS for a while, so I ambitiously decided to put on my own conference . It’s called ‘Conquering the Divine’ and will feature an international perspective in Sunil Singh from Toronto, and Caty Morris from ATSIMA will be imparting her wisdom on Indigenous and culturally responsive maths alongside some fabulous young and innovative female maths education presenters. If you need an excuse for another trip downunder, we’ll be more than happy to have you in September next year .
    https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2024-maths-symposium-conquering-the-divide-tickets-741134301647?utm_experiment=test_share_listing&aff=ebdsshios

    Reply

    • I applaud you for trying something like this out. It’s valuable to push the edge of what’s comfortable because sometimes that’s where innovation lives. Judging by the comments, there’s a fair number of people who disagree with me while quite a lot who feel like this resonates with their own beliefs.

      I hope your conference is a success and that you learn lots from the experience.

      Reply

  19. Thank you for sharing such a unique perspective on mathematics education across cultures! Your three-fold purpose for writing this piece shows both personal reflection and a genuine desire to bridge educational practices globally. As an educator myself, I find international comparisons particularly valuable, especially when they come from direct, immersive experiences like yours. The timing of your visit (late 2023) makes this insight especially current and relevant.

    Reply

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