Mathematics educators have been talking about “equity” for decades, yet equity remains elusive. Indeed, our field continues to reproduce hierarchies. These hierarchies position some students as gifted or advanced, and others as low, struggling, or remedial, with particularly grave consequences for children who are already marginalized because of their race, language, gender, class, and (dis)ability status. How and why does this happen—and what can it look like for teachers to deliberately and consistently disrupt hierarchy? In this talk, Dr. Nicole Louie will take up these questions. Drawing on her work with teachers in San Francisco and Chicago, she will describe some of the ways that teachers commonly find themselves drawn in by the gravitational force that hierarchical ways of thinking exert on many layers of society, but especially in education. She will also discuss ways of resisting this force, not only in the classroom but also in building professional communities that provide teachers with the necessary supports to approach escape velocity and challenge the gravity of hierarchies in mathematics education.

Zoom Meeting ID: 953 4937 9380