“Well, that’s not how I learned it,” proclaimed the person sitting next to me.
The comment is a familiar one for a math teacher, as I hear it all the time from students and family members. But on this particular day, the source of the remark surprised me: I was at my school’s professional learning committee meeting, and the speaker was one of my long-tenured math teaching colleagues.
“I can’t learn new ways to teach this material, it would take so much work,” he added.
“Isn’t that the job?” I thought.