That is really exciting! Count me in as one of the many viewers that will be tuning into CNN tomorrow. Good luck!

Thanks for your blog. I just found it the other day and have been enjoying reading your thoughts on teaching Math.

You are a brave man to go on national TV, but I can’t think of a better leader in Mathematics that can bring a fresh face and perspective of Math education in a national forum than you. I am sure you will do just fine. Don’t forget your shout out, ha, ha!

You’ll be great! Your TED presentation was amazing…Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you: Where do I go to repair the gaping hole my math teachers left?

Gambatte!

Dan,

Hope your focus is on whether Kagan understands mathematics education. ;^)

What’s the context of the interview (if it is an interview)? Hope they will just let you talk, not have some education deformer on to “balance” what you have to say. If that’s the case, let me growl in advance.

But if you just get to present one or more of your thoughts on effective, innovative instruction, I’m thrilled for you and for the potential exposure your thinking will get. I’d say that the TED and NCSM talks are going viral and I’m doing what I can to contribute, particularly with the folks I work with in Detroit and the ones my colleagues work with in NYC, Atlanta, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Buffalo, etc. As Nel Noddings put it, “ideas worth trying.” The deformers wouldn’t know what those look like or even understand the concept, but that’s not my problem or yours.

Congratulations on your continuing fine work.

I’ll forgo my usual practice of muting CNN and actually have it on tomorrow.

OK, so I didn’t see the interview. Where might I be able to view it? I checked cnn.com and nothing.

Too bad I can’t see it on the internet, maybe you can copy it?

Here’s the transcript, but I’ve not yet found a link to the video:

GRIFFIN: Time for “Chalk Talk.” It’s all about new ideas and innovations to help our kids learn more.

There’s nothing some kids hate more than math. Well, one ninth grade teacher in California wants to change that. He’s stripping away the clutter, making math a conversation.

His name is Dan Meyer. He joins us from California, Santa Cruz, a ninth grade teacher. Dan, thank you so much for joining us.

I can’t stand that we kind of stereotype math as this huge problem that nobody wants to study. Isn’t one of the big things that you want to do is just make math fun, interesting and relevant to people?

DAN MEYER, MATH TEACHER: Sure. I think math is fun. And a lot of what we do as teachers is get in the way of that sometimes.

GRIFFIN: So how do you do that? How do you do that in the ninth grade? I can’t think of a more tough crowd to get in front of and try to say, hey, guys, time for math.

MEYER: They love stories, they love entertainment. I go out and I find the math in the world around me that’s compelling and interesting, and try to bring that back to them without any sort of structure on top of that. No pre-built questions. Just something that’s compelling and real, and we have a conversation about it.

GRIFFIN: So talk us through one of those examples, one of those problems that you’ve brought in from the real world that starts a conversation, not a textbook, on math.

MEYER: Sure. I mean, I watch a TV show called “How I Met Your Mother.” And there’s an episode where they’re talking about a hot and crazy graph, which is a way of — kind of a crude way of evaluating a date. They’ve got to be as hot as they are crazy. And so I’ll bring in a list, fictional list, of my ex-girlfriends, and we’ll kind of evaluate them that way and get across the idea of graphing in a way that’s much more vivid than the way my textbook does.

GRIFFIN: And in terms of learning, are you seeing kids who otherwise would not have learned that learn? Are you being able to measure success?

MEYER: Sure, yes. I mean, I teach a very remedial crowd, and a lot of them go on to success in higher math, I think because we’ve taken math and made it more real for them.

GRIFFIN: Yes. You’re part time at Google, too, right?

MEYER: Also. Yes, correct.

GRIFFIN: I would think a lot of ninth graders would think that’s cool and would want to work at Google. Do you show them that, hey, math is your avenue to places like Google, to good jobs, to a future?

MEYER: You know, I find that holding a job out to ninth graders as a reward for their hard work in high school hasn’t been too effective.

(LAUGHTER)

GRIFFIN: They don’t care. You also had some conversations about the textbooks that we’re using in classrooms and the fact that they are too cluttered. What do you mean by that?

MEYER: They’re too structured in how they present real-world math, I think, in that they lay out a problem with several substeps — A, B, C, D — and they put all the given information out there in advance for students, an students don’t have to do the heavy lifting of deciding, what information do I need here, what’s important?

GRIFFIN: If there is one piece of advice you could give to a parent who’s listening right now, because hopefully our kids are all in school, in terms of trying to get them excited about math, not teaching them math — because a lot of us, quite frankly, can’t do it — but excited about math, what would it be?

MEYER: That’s a great question. I think that parents should be in contact with math teachers and really hold them accountable. Do the teachers really enjoy math? Ask them what they’re learning, the teachers, and then that should trickle down to the students.

GRIFFIN: All right. Dan Meyer, we appreciate the work you’re doing for our kids. Thanks a lot. Hopefully this catches on and you can inspire not only students, but other teachers to do the same.

Dan Meyer, thanks so much.

MEYER: Thank you.

Hello,

Perhaps this is not the right post to make this comment but I will go on as I believe in chaos.
I teach the Freshman Seminar in a college named ULACIT in Costa Rica and I have been integrating different pedagogc models in to my curriculum to make this experience worthy for my students to set the ground for their future academic experience.
Our school is implementing Teaching for Understanding and Service Learning components to every course and mine being the first of all programs has to represent their upcomming experience for all our newbies. Along with these models, several elements repeat themselves as needs that have to taken in to account. Your talk on TED references all of those. Pertinence, relation of the class contents to the students´reality, attitude, cultural standards and longterm effects of well taught or poorly taught subjects. As in your case, several of my students perceive the Freshman Seminar, as a mandatory space that they have no option for…
Your talk has given me a few good ideas regarding the need of creativiy and perceived relevance of the topics, also about how to present these so that they become important for my students.
Later on I will let you know about these new ideas and their outcome.
Thanks

Don’t be so hard on yourself! (Though, the fictional list of ex-girlfriends was scandalous!). The format is very restrictive and it is difficult to not get thrown a bit off-center by all the hustle and lighting and make-up. Too, people will Google you and find your gem of a blog.

Thanks for the vid. You did great. CNN? I dunno. The canned footage of a kid going through a math folder was pretty strange. They probably could have just pulled some vid off of this site if they’re looking for something else to show.

And the backdrop? Where do you teach? Sky High Academy?

The tie messed me up, Dan. I couldn’t concentrate on anything you said. ;)

I agree with Kris about thinking about math in a new way.
I have an idea for a math problem, or unit, but I’m not sure how to do it, mostly because I have to review the Stats course I just took because I had to.

The TED talk on penguins? Can that be made mathematical, like having students research or take info on the penguins and measure it, graph it, make statistical measurements on things like how many penguins die per year, etc.? Can it be made into some kind of algebraic formula, equation, or study?

This would be interesting to do, also bringing reading into math by having the students research the career that leads to someone doing decades long studies on penguins on an island – where does the money come from? What groups are interested? What college major is it? etc.

Dan, thanks for posting the video and sorry Anon Professor but I couldn’t disagree more! I loved that your answers were short and to the point, so that it didn’t look like you were desperately trying to ‘beat the media’ in their game. You came across as honest, confident and unhurried and you delivered your message perfectly. I also loved the ex-girlfriends example! It said to me, ‘this guy is not afraid of fun and he’s willing to treat children as actual people who are not nearly as easily scandalised as we stuffy-adults.’

Thank you so much for your work and passion. Bravo to you :)