All in a day’s work

I am very lucky in that I love my work, even if it exhausts me. I get to work with both pre-service and in-service teachers to build their confidence and capacity as teachers of mathematics. Not only that, I get to travel around the state to work in their schools.

My beautiful, but scruffy, late husband in the backyard of the house on the Peninsula.

I have worked in this capacity with in-service teachers (teachers who have completed their degrees and are working in schools) for seven years. The first four years saw me on the road for nearly seven months a year, living away from home and in temporary accommodation. When I first took on the role, I was living by myself, with a cat and a dog, 100 minutes from the airport and struggled to manage the work and travel load. Fortunately, Josh, my nephew, agreed to house share and I moved to a rented property closer to the airport, so the cat and dog still had someone to look after them and I was only 30 minutes from the home when I got off the plane, instead of what could be a two and a half drive from Melbourne airport to home on the Mornington Pennisula if I hit rush hour. It was a difficult choice, moving out of my beautiful home into rented accommodation but I loved the work I was doing and I didn’t want to go back to where I was pre-2015. (I took that year off and did my Masters.) That choice started breaking the emotional thread that attached me to that particular house, which enabled me to sell it 2 years later and then nearly 3 years ago now, even move states.

After 4 amazing years with AMSI, I decided to start a new job, buy a new house and return to study, all in South Australia. And because I never do things by halves, I packed everything up, put it on a truck, and sent it to SA with Josh, (he flew,) while I drove across with the cat and dog on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year (only 46 C,) arriving late Friday. I then started my new job on Monday followed a week later with beginning my PhD. When undergrad classes began in March, I took up a bit of tutoring, just for the hell of it.

My new job enabled me to continue working with in-service teachers and instead of working in two states while living in a third, I got to travel all over South Australia. This happened throughout 2020, 2021 & 2022, even though there were a few last-minute cancellations with schools having COVID restrictions to enforce. However, unlike both Victoria and NSW, we didn’t have major lockdowns. In fact, besides the first rush to stop the spread in March/April 2020, SA only had two snap lockdowns; one in November 2020 and the other in July 2021. Both times, I was not in Adelaide – in November 2020 I was on Kangaroo Island, and in July 2021 I was in Cobber Pedy. The first time, no one had any idea about what was happening, whether flights would be grounded, if everyone had to go home or stay put. I couldn’t get off the island so I just stayed put as I couldn’t contact the airline I was flying with and my work colleague back in Adelaide couldn’t either. I guess they were completely overwhelmed with enquiries as everyone want to know what they could and couldn’t do. I phoned the police on KI to find out if they knew what the rules were and their response was, “We’re in the dark as much as you are.” So I went to the hotel/motel where I was staying and asked to be moved into a room with cooking facilities and a washing machine; I was only supposed to be on KI for 2 nights 3 days so I only had 2 changes of clothes. I moved to a great spot overlooking the ocean and spent 4 days watching the weather outside my room. (The initial lockdown was supposed to be 6 days, but it turned out someone lied about how they contracted COVID, so the travel restrictions were lifted after 3. I left on the first available flight because although the lockdown had ended, DfE schools weren’t allowed to let non-staff members on site.)

The second lockdown was in a slightly different environment; Coober Pedy. I had flown up on Monday for a week working in the school. Woke up Tuesday morning to find that the Road House was under ‘outdoor’ dining restrictions; by 4 pm, the entire state was in lockdown. Trying to leave Coober Pedy wasn’t an option; it only has 3 flights to Adelaide per week and anyone who could, booked on the Wednesday flight. As I was due to fly out on Friday, I just stayed out. Where I stay when in Coober Pedy (The Mud Hut Motel) is really comfortable, so it wasn’t a penance. Food was a bit of an issue as I usually eat out when up there rather than cook for myself, but I managed to find stuff at the minimart at the Road House. Flew back to Adelaide on Friday and drove home through very quiet streets.

Visiting Coober Pedy is always interesting as you are never sure what you’ll get. On one visit I took all my food with me because there had been massive floods in and around the place and the main highway, Stuart Highway, was cut in both directions. As a result trucks with supplies weren’t getting through and with tourists stuck in the town and dwindling fresh food, I thought I had better go prepared. The other problem was, with the road out the plane was loaded with extra freight, so they were bumping off the luggage of passengers that were over the limit. For me, the choice was either my work stuff or the food. Fortunately, at the last minute, someone offered to unload something that was actually supposed to be going to Port Lincoln; why the hell it was being sent to Coober Pedy, nearly 900km north of Port Lincoln in the first place is a bit of a mystery.

My latest visit was also a bit of a journey. The plane left an hour and a half late and took 30 minutes longer than usual, due to headwinds. Sunday, the day before, Coober Pedy, and a number of other small outback communities had been hit by wild weather, knocking out power supplies and causing a bit of flash flooding; 35mm fell in a couple of hours where the long-term average for the entire month of October is 14 mm with winds gusting to 102 km/h. If there had been trees, there would have been trees down but there are no big trees in Coober Pedy. It was nowhere near as windy on Monday but it was a pretty bumpy ride. Just as well I was weaned on single-engine aeroplane flights in the territory in the mid-eighties. It makes air turbulence in bigger planes a lot less scary. The wind was up in Coober Pedy all of Monday and Tuesday before dying down but fortunately, all the rain meant the dust was not.

The Break Aways, just outside Coober Pedy

These are just some of my adventures over the past 3 years, doing a job I love but the travelling does get a bit wearing at times.

If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine. It’s Lethal!
Paulo Coelho

Revisiting “More heads are better than one.”

‘The most valuable resource that all educators have is each other. Without collaboration our growth is limited to our own perspectives.’
Robert John Meehan

I decided to revisit a post from another one of my sites which I have not added to for years. The focus was on a task from nrich.maths.org, one of the best sites around for inspiring mathematics activities, problems, investigations, articles and generally good stuff. I visit it, along with other sites, regularly to be inspired. I describe myself as a magpie when it comes to teaching mathematics. There are so many talented maths educators out there, sharing their ideas, that I am in awe. I will always try and acknowledge where I got information, lessons and activities from because I am a strong believer that credit should be given where it is due. I also believe in not reinventing the wheel. If someone has come up with a great way to teach a particular concept, why do I need to start from scratch?

That said, it is important that their ideas are suitable for your context. Teaching negative integers to a class of Year 6 students in Darwin probably needs to be addressed in a different context than teaching the same concepts to Year 6 students in Hobart. Finding great teaching ideas is relatively easy; making them relevant to your students is not. The best phrase I heard from a Deputy Principal about a set of ‘tools’ provided by the department was, “I tell my teachers to look at them and adopt, adapt, or be inspired.” I believe this is a great philosophy to embrace with all the resources available, particularly with the quantity accessible online.

There is, however, a problem; one that is at the root of all the political dialogue occurring at present around teaching, teachers and education in general. TIME. Teachers are expected to do so much outside of the actual job of teaching & learning, when do they have the time to adapt and inspire? So certain people with power and absolutely no idea about how to teach, suggest “let’s do all the planning for the teachers. That will give them the time they need to do their jobs properly.”

Anyone, with even the smallest idea of the art of teaching, can identify the problem with this. Teaching effectively is about knowing your students, recognising their individual points of need, identifying their ZPD, (for those not in the know that’s Zone of Proximal Development,) and developing instruction that addresses that ZPD while ensuring there is the right level of productive struggle so learning happens. Providing a set of lessons that are mandated for teachers to follow simply teaches to the middle; forget the struggling students and don’t bother extending the ones who have already mastered that concept. “But wait,” I hear you cry, “a good teacher can adapt the lesson to ensure that happens.” Yes, this is true, but isn’t that what good teachers do already? What is the purpose of mandating, and then expecting good teachers to adapt to suit their students? Are the mandated lessons to ensure not-so-good teachers are teaching something worthwhile, while good teachers are feeling undervalued, disempowered and frustrated, to the extent that they want to leave the profession? This is happening and will continue to happen if teachers are not given the time they need to do their job, which includes time to develop programs, units of work, and lessons that are suitable for all their students, not just some. And who knows their students best? The teachers who teach them, not some faceless person in an office somewhere.

This brings me back to where I started and the reposting of this entry, “More heads are better than one.” One of the best ways to ensure quality teaching is to give teachers time to work together in their schools to adopt, adapt or be inspired, using the resources available. By working together, sharing ideas, coaching one another, and supporting professional growth, all teachers will grow professionally, benefitting all the students in their care.

The fun for me in collaboration is, one, working with other people just makes you smarter; that’s proven.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Fantastic example of collaboration and the amazing people I work with occurred today. The school year has started and after two days of presentations down on the Peninsula, I am back in the office today, preparing for a full week of school visits next week.

I’m really exciting about working with the teachers and year 9 students are Dromana College next week, over two afternoons. I want to really make an impression with the students, with a growth mindset presentation, followed by a couple of challenging and fun activities.

The presentation I plan on showing comes from the wonderful Jo Boaler’s website https://www.youcubed.org/. She is so inspiring and I talk about her work in all my schools. The presentation is about maths, believing in yourself, the importance of mistakes and the beauty of maths. Now I needed an activity to encourage and enable collaboration.

Going to nrich I found ‘9 colours’ which I believed looked thought-provoking, so I asked my colleagues if they were interested in solving it collaboratively to help determine how successful it could be. Being in a room full of mathematicians and maths teachers, they jumped at it and as a result I now have a real good lesson to present next week.
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This is the task, but it is now so much more, relating it to the Australian Curriculum at 6 different year levels, extending it in many ways;

Draw it on isometric paper from different perspectives;

How many drawings do you need to show all faces?

Is there more than one way to place each small cube?

Is yours the same as another group?

If you gave another group a drawing can they reconstruct your design?

what is the minimum amount of drawing you need to give them?

Is there a pattern to the placement of your cubes?

Remove particular colour (3 blocks) – draw the design with missing blocks

What is the surface area and the volume?

How does the surface area and volume change when you remove one colour?

Can you predict the colour of the middle block (the one not visible)?

Is there symmetry in your design?

Can you determine the total number of combinations?

What can you determine about the number of faces of each colour you will see in the completed cube?

Can you explain this using numbers/algebra?

How many colours would you need for a 4 by 4 by 4 cube?

How many cubes in a 4 by 4 by 4 cubes?

Do the same rules and patterns exist in a 4 by 4 by 4 cube?

Is there a point at which the task is impossible? (5 x 5 x 5; 6 x 6 x 6; 7 x 7 x 7….)

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cube1-2 — Our cube; thanks Jac, Julia and Nadia.

As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Other people and other people’s ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” Amy Poehler

“Now this is not the end.”

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. Winston Churchill

First last days started this week; it’s sad, that after 4 years of visiting these school, their staff and students, there will be no, “I’ll see you next term,” as I walk out the door. Having said that, I am excited about the future so really, like Churchill’s sentiment, it is the end of the beginning. I have spent the last 4 years learning so I can confidently move to the next stage. I guess leaving the people I have met in Port Augusta isn’t too upsetting as I will be coming back in some role or another, and I will still be in contact and see many of them in and around Adelaide.

This week, I have had a number of discussion around planning for next year and what should be taught first. I have a number of views in this and most of them are not, as far as I’m aware, research based, but the result of years of teaching, talking with other teachers and the round-about of education. If you disagree, sorry and if you have research to demonstrate what I think is wrong, please point me in that direction.

I talk to teachers at all year levels about the importance of putting maths in context and my personal belief that starting with fractions, time, money and/or measurement, depending on the year level, are as good a place to begin the teaching and learning year as any.

Telling time using an analogue clock is a dying skill as most people, these days, use digital time. If you want students to learn to tell the time using an analogue clock then you have to give it a purpose. So teach it at the beginning of the year then, as the teacher, make the commitment to refer the students to the clock constantly. When they ask, “Can I go to the toilet/get a drink? What times lunch/recess/home time/PE? How much longer until…?” respond, according to level, “At quarter past/half past/quarter to/ 5 past/ 20 past etc., in 10 minutes, in five minutes….” Always look at the clock and refer the students to it, expect them to use the clock to tell the time and not view it as a room decoration. Time then becomes part of everyday life and not a 2 week unit. Once upon a time, (okay, when I was young, which was some time ago,) getting a wristwatch was considered a milestone, and it was an analogue watch, not digital. Most wristwatches are now digital; Fitbits or something similar.

Set up a classroom economy at the beginning of the year and have the students managing it by the beginning of term 2. Again this builds in money as an ongoing teaching and learning strategy rather than a ‘two week’ unit and it becomes part of everyday schoolroom life. There are lots of websites on the classroom economy as it can be adapted to work for all age levels. I have seen it working very well in a year 1/2 class, as well as in year 6 level. The sophistication of the economy is dependent on the year level, but, again, you as the teacher, must commit to it.

strip_fractions2 — “Why my half bigger than your?” Reinforcing the concept that the size of the half is dependent on the size of the whole or collection.

$strip_fractions3$

Why fractions early on? In the national curriculum in Australia, half past and half are taught in Year 1; half, quarters and eighths of objects (whole) and collections and quarter to and quarter past are taught in Year 2; the concept of unit fractions and their multiples in year 3 along with telling time to the nearest minute, which, personal, I think is a huge jump so would focus on five minute intervals. Beyond Year 3, the curriculum begins to contain an increasing amount of content, with a lot of which is fractions, decimals and percentages focused. By the time students are in Year 6, more than 50% of the achievement standard has this focus, yet, in all honesty, these extremely important concepts are addressed as a separate unit of work maybe in term 3 for a few weeks and less than 25% of the teaching and learning time is spent on it.

Lastly, measurement. If you unpack the using units of measurement component of the Measurement and Geometry strand, the following action verbs reoccur; compare, order, measure, convert, all of which use number. Even in years 1 & 2 where uniform informal units are used there are opportunities to link measurements and number particularly with the extended subtraction concepts of missing addend and comparison.

My foot is 12 unifix long but I only have 8. How many more unifix do I need? or My height is 16 paddle pop sticks, Jane’s height is 10 paddle pop sticks. What’s the difference in paddle pop sticks?

Often strands are taught separately with students not seeing the connections between them, while teachers struggle with the ‘crowded curriculum.’ In Year 6 a content descriptor in the Measurement strand clearly states ‘connect decimal representations to the metric system’ while in the Number strand ‘multiple and divide decimals by powers of 10’ directly supports ‘convert between common metric units…’

Off back to Melbourne for 2 nights then back on the plane for my final trip to Port Hedland. Safe travels everyone.

PA_SpencerGulf_Stillness1 — The stillness that settles at times over the Spencer Gulf, SA

Same view at low tide and when it’s blowing a gale and dust is whipped up

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” ― Albert Einstein

I had a very interest conversation awhile ago and I have been thinking should I mention it here or not. After cogitating on it for sometime, I have decided it is worthy of discussion. One of the main issues in maths education is the desire to teach the way you were taught, which is fine, if you were taught well. While visiting a school, I spent time with a couple of teachers discussing 2-digit multiplication. D, an older teacher who openly declares she isn’t a ‘maths person’, wanted to know why we didn’t just teach the algorithm and procedure because the rest was too confusing and a waste of time. She described the way she learnt as,

“43 x 4; 4 times 3 is 12, write down the 2, put the 1 on the doorstep, 4 x 4 is 16, plus the 1 on the doorstep. The answers 172. Done.”

I ask what the students were doing. D showed me and explained as she went:

“4 x 3 is 12, and they write down 12 on the first line. On the second line, they put down a zero; don’t know why they do that. Then they go 4 x 4 is 16 and put it in front of the zero, then they add it up. Don’t know why they have to do it this way; it takes too long and it doesn’t make sense to me.”

I ask if the students understood what they were doing and she responded,

“Yes, but it takes too long, why don’t we just teach them the quick way like I was taught.”

Another teacher was trying to help me explain the need for conceptual as well as procedural knowledge, but D wasn’t having a bar of it; too long, not fast enough. When I asked if she knew why the zero was written down before the ‘16’, she wasn’t particularly interested because she didn’t need it her way. When I pointed out that the 4 next to the 3 was actually 40 and so it was 40 x 4, she was a bit taken aback and ‘yeah, yeah, I knew that.’

Someone came in at that point and ask me a question about the assessment they were doing, so I wandered off. When I came back, the other teacher was trying to explain the lattice model of multiplication to her. That went down like a lead balloon!

It is argued that teachers’ mathematical beliefs can be categorised in multiple dimensions. These beliefs are said to originate from previous traditional learning experiences mainly during schooling. Once acquired, teachers’ beliefs are eventually reproduced in classroom instruction. It is also argued that, due to their conservative nature, educational environments foster and reinforce the development of traditional instructional beliefs. Although there is evidence that teachers’ beliefs influence their instructional behaviour, the nature of the relationship is complex and mediated by external factors.

Handal, B. (2003). Teachers’ mathematical beliefs: A review. The Mathematics Educator, 13(2).

If this is the case, how do you go about changing beliefs and attitudes? The last sentence perhaps gives hope. Beliefs can be changed but it takes time, energy, persistence, and a willingness to look at another way that may be difficult to master. This is not only relevant to older teachers, with many young teachers happy to teach the way they were taught, particularly if they are not overly confident when teaching maths.

Some of my most successful interactions have been with experienced teachers. Breaking down the initial barriers can be a challenge, (sitting arms folded, staring at me, thinking ‘what does she know that I don’t! Humph,’) but usually, when they realise, one: I’ve been where they are, and reasonably recently, and two: I do have practical, workable ideas that are something they can do, they warm to me.

A prefect example of this is teacher, J. J has been a teacher for as long as me and, when directed to meet with me at the beginning of this year, (all classroom teachers were meeting with me to discuss maths moderation tasks,) she came reluctantly. There was a definite, ‘what can you tell me that I don’t already know’ attitude. I will be honest; she made me work for my money. Trying to find out how I could support her met a brick wall and everything I offered the response was, “Yes, but…” Eventually, after what seemed like a very long 30 minutes, I finally made a break through, and “Oh, I hadn’t thought about like that.” 15 minutes later she left and I felt exhausted. The next meeting I had with J, she bounced in the door, full of stories about success and engage her students were with maths. Come the last meeting, J tells me how much she has enjoyed teaching maths this year and she never thought she’d say that. That only took a year and I really hope that J can continue to feel positive about teaching maths.

The problem is, permanent change takes longer than a year. Conventional wisdom suggest 3 – 5 years; for some it will take less, others more. Government and big business want change but they have to be prepared to go with the long haul and frequently they aren’t and to paraphrase Eddie Mercury and Queen:

They want it all and they want it now.

Back to some maths.

How could you teach 2-digit by 1-digit multiplication and 2-digit by 2-digit multiplication for both conceptual and procedural understanding? This is how I do it:

After using MAB blocks to demonstrate the concrete model of multiplication move on to grid paper. This is directly linking multiplication and area. There are a number of games that make this link when students are learning their multiplication facts,(just put multiplication area games into Google.)

3 rows of 15 is a bit difficult to answer unless I know that I double 15 (30) and add one more group of 15 (45), so how do can I make it clearer?

Using the distributive property, split 15 into 10 + 5 (this is how 15 is represented using MAB, which you have used during the concrete model)

Now we have 3 rows of 10 and 3 rows of 5.

Knowing the commutative property, (i.e. 3 x 10 = 10 x 3 and 3 x 5 = 5 x 3), we can see (10 + 5) x 3 = (10 x 3) + (5 x 3) = 30 + 15 = 45.

Using grid paper takes up time and space, so let’s just represent it as a region.

Moving onto 2-digit by 2-digit, again using the distributive property. Often when students are learning 2-digit by 2-digit multiplication, they do the 3fives are 15, write down the 5 in the ‘ones’ place, carry the one (pink above 1 in 15), 3 x 1 is 3 plus 1 makes 4. 1 x 5 is 5; 1 x 1 is 1. Write it down; add it up.

When we encourage students to only learn procedure, this is a common mistake, as they are reading 1 ten as 1 and not taking the true value into consideration. The area model is an excellent strategy to ensure that students do not ‘forget the zero’ as they can see quite clearly that they are multiplying by 10 not 1; yet 1 times 5 is often the language used with describing 10 times 5 in the algorithm.

Distributive property and the area model of multiplication are also vital for later on.

(This is just a side note, not something I’m teaching a three/four grade.)

Once students can see how the area model works, we need to move them on to using the algorithm. Again I would do this in steps, which again leads back to the students’ workings are the very beginning of this rant.

I know for some of you, this seems over kill, but I have found these steps provide a solid basis for both procedural and conceptual understanding; students can clearly see where each product belongs in the process and what it is representing so when they finally get to the ‘short’ method, they know what they are doing and why.

You will notice I have flipped 10 and 3 around in the final area model, simply because it makes it neater.

I am finishing with the final paragraph from the paper I included earlier:

Teachers’ mathematical beliefs are seen as self-perpetuating within the atmosphere of a system that promotes progressive teaching but in fact helps in maintaining traditional beliefs and practices. It was also argued that by the time an individual enters a teacher education program, these traditional conceptions are so solidified and entrenched in their personal philosophy that change to alternative beliefs is difficult although not impossible.

Handal, B. (2003). Teachers’ mathematical beliefs: A review. The Mathematics Educator, 13(2).

In case of D, very difficult! Okay, so this was a Maths overkill blog, but sometimes I really worry about the teaching, or lack of teaching, that occurs in some of our classrooms. Now getting down off my soapbox!

Last photo is one taken with my new toy, a drone. Unfortunately everything seems to be an angle. (Yes, I know there’s a maths activity in there.)

Back on the road again

Had my first real trip for the 2019 with a three week stint in Port Hedland, WA, which includes South Hedland. For those of you that may not know where Port Hedland is, it is in the Pilbara. Still none the wiser, check out their website: www.porthedland.wa.gov.au

I work in the 5 primary schools and the 1 secondary school in the immediate Hedland area as well as Marble Bar, which is 200+ km south-east of Port Hedland, into the outback. Marble Bar (www.aussietowns.com.au/town/marble-bar-wa) holds a world record but not a lot else, other than some amazing rock formation in the river.

20180824_094406 — Example of the rocks at Marble Bar.

20180824_093954 — Wide angle of the De Grey River which contains the rock formations that give Marble Bar its name.

While visiting the school, I popped down the local store , which by the way, sells fantastic homemade sausage rolls and other good Australian tucker, and when I got back to the school, I sat out on the porch outside the admin block. It was 45 C and there was silence; no insect sound, no bird sound, no human sound, just the gentle, hot breeze moving through the trees. It was just too damn hot and anything with sense was indoors in the air-conditioning.

I wasn’t planning on talking about the Pilbara, but if you have never been there, it is an incredible place, probably for all the wrong reasons. It is huge, the skies are vast, the land is red and everything is big. Sometimes it green, but mostly it’s red and brown.

PH3 — The dirt and the sky – Port Hedland, Western Australia

When I’m driving around this beautiful country I listen to audio books as you can’t always rely on the radio reception; my favourite in the Pilbara is Andy Weir’s ‘The Martian’ because I may as well be there, i.e. Mars.

The roads are pretty good because there are lots of mines around the place and huge road trains, 4 trailers long,

20170226_183858 — Road train heading to Port Hedland

work the smaller mines on the road out to Marble Bar or south towards Newman. The biggest hazard is probably live stock as cattle stations are so huge the paddocks aren’t fenced. Low flying flocks of small birds can be a bit of a problem too. I once took out about 4 wild budgerigars when a flock suddenly swooped in front of the car. I was devastated and stopped and ran back to check. While I’m standing on the side of the road looking at these poor little birds, a guy stopped and asked if I was okay. When I explained, he looked at me, shook his head and said, “These things happen,” then drove off. He was probably thinking a few other things as well.

But let’s backup a bit; to get to Port Hedland, I catch a 4 hour flight to Perth from Melbourne, generally sit round for a full working day (during eastern day light saving, there is a 3 hour time difference,) then fly 2 & half hours to Port Hedland. When I visit I stay for 3 working weeks because it is far too far to go for just 10 days as you loose 2 days just getting there and back.

When I first visited in February 2016 my overwhelming memories are of bigness; the roads are big, the trains are big, the trucks are big, the ships are big…. I’m sure you’re getting the picture. The trains can be between 90 and 330 wagons long, over 3 km in length. You don’t want to get to the rail crossing when one of the long ones goes past.

Distance is relative. No, I hear you cry, a kilometer is a 1000m wherever you are, but I would argue distance and length are two different things. Let me give you an example. Late last year, my very dear Uncle Rob passed away after a prolonged battle with cancer. Unfortunately I was in Port Hedland at the time of the funeral, which was in Auckland, New Zealand. I wrote down some of my memories of Rob and sent them to my brothers who would be attending the funeral. Afterwards I was feeling emotional and I needed to see as well as talk to a friend. Fortunately, Jac, my friend and colleague, was in Karratha, so I called her up and said, “Do you want to have a coffee?” As her answer was positive, I jumped in the car and drove to Karratha for coffee and then drove back again (a 500km round trip.) Telling this to locals, their response is, “Fair enough, done that myself more than once,” while responses from family and Melbourne friends was more likely, “You did what?” So back to my argument, distance is relative; when the nearest town is 250km down the road, a 500km round trip is a quick trip, while 500km in other places is at least an overnight journey.

20180311_134437 — The Claw, just outside Hedland, at the Marble Bar turnoff.

I love working in a place like Hedland as the people are generally so welcoming. Nearly everyone is from somewhere else, which means their immediate families are not around so people make their new families and support and care each other. Some people dropped in for a couple of days and are still there 20 years later; others last 6 months at the most. It is not an easy life, living in the heat, dust and isolation but if you are prepared to give it a go it can be very rewarding. I work with a number of young graduate teachers who have ventured out into the unknown, along way from home, friends and family, but the experiences they have, both professional and personal, will shape who they become. Some view it as the best, some as the worst. Part of my job is to hopefully give them positive and rewarding insights into teaching mathematics that will stay with them throughout their teaching careers.

A monster of a storm brewing over Hedland during the wet season.

If you ever get the chance, visit the Pilbara. You might be glad to leave but everything about the environment is overwhelming

At sunset, even the industrial landscape is beautiful.

Sums, sets and sunsets

20170222_183933

Mathematics has beauty and romance. It’s not a boring place to be, the mathematical world. It’s an extraordinary place; it’s worth spending time there.

Marcus du Sautoy

Professor du Sautory words ring so true to me and is something I live and breathe every working day. It, however, is at times a struggle to persuade others that it is true. I have an incredible job; along with 7 colleagues, we travel the width and breadth of this amazingly beautiful and diverse country, Australia, working with teachers, school leadership, students, parents and the general community, trying to encourage and enable people to spend time in the wonderful world of mathematics. At the same time, we get to experience some stunning, and not so stunning, parts of the country. While we outreach officers are out on the road, there is also a talented team that manages marketing, media, research, careers awareness and mentoring around the country, as we all work towards raising the profile of mathematics across every aspect of the community.

I have had this job for 3 years now and, with 2019 the last year of the project, I decided to blog my way through the next 12 months, sharing stories, thoughts, discoveries, hopes, mathematics and sunsets.

The idea for this blog came from Chris, my brother-in-law, when he suggested I write a book called, ‘Sums, Sets and Sunsets,’ about my job and travel. Why sunsets? Well, it has become a standard practice among the team to share what we refer to as ABS (Another Bloody Sunset or Sunrise) and I frequently share my ABSs on my FB page so friends and family can see the beauty that this country can throw up.

I also thought it would be a great opportunity to share the amazing journey I have been on, both professionally and personally as, while I have 35 years plus experience as a teacher, the last 20 as a numeracy specialist, the last 10 as a teaching and learning coach, I have learnt so much over the past 3 years, I seriously wish I had another 35 – if only I knew then what I know now and what I will no doubt learn in the coming year.

I decided to go with a blog because there may be others out there in this wonderful global world that are interested in what I do, I think, I hope and I see. If there are, I hope you will join me on the journey.