I’m honored to be featured in Ben Orlin’s post “What Makes a Great Teacher?”

Ben, the author of “Math With Bad Drawings“ and “Change is the Only Constant” (one of the books I read in 2019) asked four teachers to respond to a fan’s inquiry. Here’s what I had to say.

I’m reluctant to use the phrase “Bad Teacher.” Faced with hundreds of interactions and decisions every day, we all have good and bad moments. Those moments accumulate over a semester, a year, a career, and in most cases yield a net positive result I’d say.

But you can tell a lot about a teacher by how they respond when students don’t succeed. Some will say, “What’s wrong with you?” Others will ask, “What’s wrong with me?”

I really enjoyed thinking about the question, and the different and diverse insights of Fawn Nguyen, Jo Morgan, and Marian Dingle were wonderful. As were Ben’s trademark illustrations of our responses! He nailed mine. Be sure to check out the entire post for yourself at Ben’s blog.

Next week I’ll be visiting Rutgers University to give a talk about communicating mathematics. I’ll be presenting “Math Outside the Bubble” to the Graduate Student Chapter of the American Mathematical Society on Monday, 3/2.

I’m excited to share some of what I’ve learned in my career communicating mathematics to students, parents, and educators through my work as a teacher, as well as to the public through my writing and mathematical outreach. It’s wonderful to know that math students at the beginning of their careers are thinking about the role communication plays in the field. It’s an undervalued, but increasingly critical component of the work.

Update: A recap of the event and some pictures are posted on the Rutgers AMS website here.