If you’ve ever sat in on a professional development session with me, you’ve heard my spiel, “From here on out, you’re a math person. Even if you feel you have no connection to mathematics, you need to channel your inner actor or actress and become a math person. Your students know how you feel about it, and they will feed off the energy about math you bring to your classroom.” Somehow, over time, it has become socially acceptable to say, “I’m not a math person.” Or, “Numbers? Yuck. I don’t do those.” We see it in movies, TV shows, and advertisements. We hear it on podcasts and in everyday conversation.  I find myself constantly wondering why statements like this are allowable while here in the U.S., careers in STEM are likely to grow twice as much as those in any other occupation in the next decade. Is it possible that teacher beliefs and their own math teaching identities will impact the ability to fill these positions? Possibly. Are you reading this and thinking that’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever read? That’s cool, but read on. Through my own personal experience as a teacher, instructional coach, administrator, and consultant whose primary focus is elementary mathematics, I can enthusiastically say I believe that one’s beliefs about the teaching and learning of mathematics matter. However, I think some might roll their eyes and think, “Sure, of course she has a positive attitude about the teaching and learning of mathematics. She’s a math person.” The truth is, despite my ongoing ability to wax poetic about the beauty of teaching mathematics and how in fact, numbers are actually kind of awesome,  I still struggle with thinking I’m a “math person.” I took three years of math in high school. I took the easiest math classes in undergrad I could. I was completely turned off, stressed out, and annoyed by the subject. It wasn’t until I was working on my PhD in mathematics education that I realized why: It was because of how I was taught. And this is exactly why I do what I do. I have vivid memories of my high school Algebra teacher shaking his head at my questions. I was tested for learning disabilities because of that class (I do not have learning disabilities). I don’t know why he shook his head at my questions, and I do not know why he recommended I be tested; however, as an educator who spends a lot of time considering how humans, of all ages, think, learn, and teach, it’s possible he did so because I didn’t think like he did about math. It’s also possible he didn’t understand why – it’s what worked for him! When I started teaching in 1997, I knew right away I was not prepared to teach math. My solution was to do the best I could, with what I knew, and then work to learn more. However, seven years, six different grade levels, four schools, and three cities later, I was pretty much still doing what I had done my first year- teaching the same way I was taught. I stood in front of my students, showed them how to solve problems, and then asked them to mimic what I had done. I was using a new math series that offered up different algorithms to teach kids, but I was still telling them the steps of the algorithm and assigning them to do the exact same thing I had done. Meanwhile, in reading, they were reading rich texts at levels appropriate for them. I was conferring with them one-on-one or meeting with them in small groups for guided reading and word work. They also met in their own small groups to engage in conversations about what they were reading. They all had a reading notebook that held lists of the books they were reading, books they wanted to read, and authentic reactions to and comments about what they were reading – to which I responded each week. During math instruction, I never asked one question what they were thinking about and spent most of the time telling them how to think about the problems in front of them. I did this, even though I knew that way of teaching mathematics did not work for me. Why wasn’t I teaching math with a similar pedagogical approach as I did reading? Because I wasn’t comfortable teaching math. I wasn’t a “math person.” After seven years of this, I started to realize this really wasn’t ok. In college, I started dating someone who liked numbers. We’d be driving down the road and he’d make number sentences out of the time (If it’s 5:41 then 5-4= 1, and all is right in the world). I thought this was weird, was annoyed when he insisted that I too make number sentences, but also charmed at his persistence to have fun with him. His fondness of numbers led him to embark on a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction and teach math methods courses; I remained in the classroom, annoyed that he was bringing home “fluffy” ideals about teaching math. A common response to his ideas in our house was, “You have lost all perspective of teachers. We don’t have time to teach like that. The kids will never get it. It’s all too fluffy.” Secretly, though, I was going to school and trying some things out. I was terrible at teaching math. I was embarrassed at how different it was from ELA time in my classroom. I knew I was stifling my own students. I will never forget the first time I remember actually asking a child how he solved a problem. It was 9 +7. Nines were the WORST. I, at almost the age of 30, was still counting on my fingers to make sure my sum was correct. I was terrible at my nines. I never passed my nines test. This kid? He said he just turned the 9 into a 10 to make it easier to add the 7, and then took 1 away from 17 to make up for changing the 9 to a 10. 9 + 7 = ? 10 + 7 = 17 17 – 1 = 16 I was incredulous. You can do that? Over the course of the next several days, I asked a lot of questions. Other kids solved 9+7 by taking one from the 7 to make 10 and then adding 6. 9 + 7 = ? 7 = 6 + 1 9 + 1 = 10 10 + 6 = 16 Or they would take 3 from the 9 to make 10 then add 6. 9 + 7 = ? 9 = 3 + 6 7 + 3 = 10 10 + 6 = 16 Over and over again, when I asked my students how they solved problems, I was in awe of their thinking.