Teaching and learning math is hard work.
As humans, we are pre-wired to seek safety and avoid perceived danger, seeking comfort and avoiding uncomfortable, and out of control situations at all costs. In spaces where we encounter powerful (sometimes negative) emotions, like we do in math class, we prioritize safety.
We protect ourselves from the shame of not knowing an answer, the disappointment of a bad test grade, or letting down the expectations of a teacher, a parent, or even our peers. We stay small, avoiding eye contact with the teacher, asking for a pass to go to the bathroom, or act out so as to avoid doing the work altogether. In a culture that emphasizes correctness over curiosity, we learn, from a very young age, to run from uncomfortable feelings in math class by opting out of math altogether.
This can have dire consequences.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the number of jobs in so-called “math occupations” is set to increase by 29% by 2031, or by roughly 30,000 jobs per year – a faster clip than for other occupations. As cited in Study: Math Scores Matter More for Adult Earnings Than Reading, Health Factors.
Casually accepting “I am not a math person” has the potential to stifle economic progress. By limiting the pool of qualified individuals who have the confidence and the skills to take on jobs in STEM fields, our next generation of adults will not be able to keep up with the demands of a rapid economic and technological growth. Furthermore, opting out of math, even for people who do not work in STEM fields, limits their ability to make informed decisions and to interpret information that appears convincing but lacks validity. Mathematical literacy is not something humans can opt out of.
Could the roles we play in math class be the solution to this problem?
Enter the Drama and Empowerment “triangles”. Conceptualized by Stephen B. Karpman and David Emerald, respectively, these models describe the ways in which people to relate to one another and to their circumstances. These models have been used to conceptualize relationships in business leadership and management contexts. They are used as tools to recognize beliefs that limit effectiveness (drama roles) and coach people toward more empowering thoughts and actions. These roles can be applied to the wide range of relationships that show up in math class. Relationships are highly context dependent and could include human to human relationships such as, student to student, student to teacher, but also include relationships between the humans and the systems such as curriculum and district.
The Drama Triangle, sometimes referred to as “The Dreaded Drama Triangle”, has, at its core, the “victim” role which arises when humans are faced with situations that they don’t want or like, such as a difficult problem to solve, low test scores or unfavorable student behavior. The victim experiences limiting beliefs and responds to the situation in one of two ways, either as a “rescuer”, or as a “persecutor”. The rescuer strives to save others by overcompensating and being overly helpful while the persecutor, places blame and criticizes others, including systems and people.
Presented as an anecdote to The Drama Triangle is The Empowerment Dynamic, conceptualized as with “creator” as the core role. The creator aims to shift limiting beliefs and work toward empowered solutions stepping into the roles of “challenger” or “coach”. The challenger sees moments of struggle as opportunities of growth and change. In a classroom setting, the challenger may be a teacher who asks a question that moves a student from being stuck to being unstuck such as, “can you walk me through your thinking so far?”. The teacher finds opportunities to express empathy, “I see that this seems hard for you” while fostering autonomy, “what is one small step you could use based on what you already know?”.
I work with a lot of teachers and students in math classrooms and when things get tough - when students and/or teachers experience powerful emotions, the drama roles are in full effect. Let me be clear - I point this out because drama is practically unavoidable - it will happen, in every classroom, as long as every classroom contains human beings. AND…the power lies in our ability to recognize the drama roles and transform them to with actions that lead to empowering results.
When students are working in small groups and they raise their hands to tell the teacher “I don’t get it". The “worse” it gets, the more the teacher may want to grab that pencil and fix it - get the students back on the right track and make everything more comfortable.
Enacting the challenger, a teacher could express interest in the students’ question and then pose a question back that moves their thinking forward.
A student reads a word problem and immediately raises their hand to ask to go to the bathroom.
As a coach, the teacher may dismiss the student but then reconnect with them when the student returns to empathetically ask a question, such as, “what do you know is happening in this word problem?”
My intention is to get you thinking that math class is about way more than just numbers and equations. The roles we play can have significant impact on how we see ourselves as math people, or not. I leave you with more wonderings that I will explore in future posts.
I wonder, where did you spend most of your time in math class? Drama or Empowerment?
I wonder, if math class gave students more opportunities to play around in The Empowerment Dynamic, would we have less opt-outs?
Up next, I will delve into specific actions that can shift limiting beliefs in math class, from the drama triangle, to empowering beliefs.