Ok class, do you remember who this is?  
“Mrs Sandford – the Math Challenge Lady!” the kiddos chant in singsong unison.
Yup – that’s me.  I smile. 

I wasn’t always the Math Challenge Lady but this has been a strange year for everyone.  For me, it has been different since I am in a new role as a Junior High Math Coach.  Instead of focusing my attention on my own classes of thirty or so grade 7 and 8 math students as I had for two decades as a classroom teacher, I am assigned to schools that request a coach.  For about 5 weeks at a time, I work alongside three math teachers in their classrooms, with their students, toward their goals.  My new role, collaborating with other educators in pursuit of student achievement, has been incredible.  I have learned from and with some amazing teachers and been welcomed into rich, exciting, unique, and special learning communities.  I feel like I am making an impact – but it is different.

Those who know me will recognize that not having my own class this year is a difficult adjustment.  I miss both the room and the wonderful personalities that fill it.  I spend a lot of time and energy creating a physical space that is welcoming, comfortable, creative and interesting.  I want students to relax when they enter, have something fun and inspiring to look at, and feel like it is their room too.  Then comes the atmosphere.  Many kids have a visceral reaction to mathematics.  Love or hate or fear.  I want to expand that to include joy and curiosity, and provide experiences that bring intense satisfaction.  And I want students to want to be there.  I work really hard to build trust and create a supportive and collaborative community of learners.  This effort and attention pays huge dividends. 
I get to witness awesomeness, growth, independence, and persistence.  I get to observe vibrant youngsters figuring out who they are and maybe even play a role in how they see themselves.  And ok – I teach junior high so I witness a lot of other things too!  But the overall feeling I pursue and relish is that quiet satisfaction that comes when you see young minds buying in; when kids feel safe enough to try, to persist, to give a task their best shot. When you are present for that moment when a child has figured something out; when the lightbulb goes on…it’s pretty special. 
I need those moments. It’s why I became a teacher.  They come because I work hard to create the conditions under which they are possible.  My new position found me in a supporting role.  Would I still have those moments?  

As a classroom teacher, my very first day had to have a special math activity.  Something to set the tone for how things were going to operate on my watch.  Lots of deep thinking, conversations, revising, connecting.  An activity that guaranteed participation.  Easy enough to begin for those tentative or reluctant students but perplexing enough to be challenging for the confident.  We’d make mistakes together and learn from mistakes together.  We would have this first shared experience as a new community of learners and begin our year-long math journey.  Together. 
I didn’t know how to begin a school year without it.  Maybe I didn’t have to…maybe I just had to think bigger.  Expand that community of learners school wide.

I was lucky enough to have my first coaching placement at the school I have worked at for a gazillion years – Sackville Heights Junior High.  Best school there is.  When I asked teachers if a weekly school wide math challenge was something they might let me pursue – it was greeted with open arms.  I set right to work.  Each week, I created a math challenge, introduced it to classes with my coaching partner, and students had the week to complete their best work.   Winning classroom teams were awarded, we showcased some math awesomeness and tried to promote some math play and engagement on a larger scale.  I started to feel it – some sparks!  Flickers of interest in teachers as well as in students.  Joyful math moments!  It was still possible in this role!  The concept, however, wasn’t without issues.  Making time to introduce and work on the challenges was tricky for teachers.  So was the team idea.  With the stress of teaching during a pandemic, the last thing I wanted was for teachers to feel pressure to participate or to have one more item to juggle, schedule, or consider.  When my coaching block wrapped up and I moved on to another school, I decided to let the weekly challenge idea go.

Months later, I found myself back at my home away from home:  Sackville Heights Junior High.  As I walked into the building that first day back, students were stopping me asking if the weekly math challenges were going to start up again. I was surprised and excited.  Impact.  Interest.  Curiosity.  I didn’t imagine it!  But how could I promote this joyful math without encroaching on time needed for curriculum outcomes?  How could I make it optional, no pressure, but open and welcome to all?  

My solution?  I created a Weekly Math Challenge Google Classroom.  Kids – join if you like!  I remember sitting in front of the computer screen after I put in the morning announcements word of its existence.  I stared at the students section of my new Google Classroom. Would anyone join?  (Refresh)  How much of this math joy was my own imagination?  (Refresh) I needn’t have worried.  Currently 207 young mathematicians check out my weekly challenges and many submit ideas for feedback.  I get random inquiries about possible solutions and requests for hints on Saturday nights, Sunday mornings before dawn, and even during our Spring Break.  Math for fun.  Participation by choice.  Best marking I have ever done.

I’m still figuring out this coaching gig.  I’m not as great at working with grown-ups (yet) but I’m a learner too.  I’ll get there…I have to be patient with myself.  And my need to create and be present for those magical math moments?  Maybe it will be enough to help other teachers spark a little math joy in their students.  Maybe not.  But until I can figure that out  – I’ll be the Math Challenge Lady.  Wondering where to find me?  Just look for the sparks.

• 

• 

My mom was visiting this week and we got to reminiscing.  A math teacher herself, we always have a lot to chat about.  Today we were laughing about my first day as a “real” teacher.  Well maybe not a real teacher – I was reminded enough that first day that I was not, in fact, the real teacher.  But it was my first day as a substitute – a paid gig.  I was excited and nervous, but mainly excited.  In for the day in a grade four class in my hometown of New Waterford, Nova Scotia.  Grade 4’s were scary.  Younger than my comfort zone and probably super attached to their “real” teacher and their routines.  I was going to mess it up.  I was going to mess it up huge.

I was shown a bright, beautiful classroom with rows of tiny furniture.  Excited.  That’s how I felt.  This is what I wanted: my own class to decorate and organize and breathe life into.  Then  I found the sub plan.  It was a book.  I could feel my pulse start to race…back to nervous.  There was no time to read any of this.  I saw the schedule, a list of spelling words, found a novel, and some math questions.  We would be fine?  We would be fine.  I took a few deep breaths and practiced my opening introduction and reviewed my expectations out loud to the empty desks.  A throat cleared.  A teacher from the neighboring room was there to show me where to collect my students from the line up outside.  She grinned as I turned a deep purple.  “You’ll do fine,” she reassured me.  

The day was a roller coaster of ups and downs.  I used the wrong colour star stickers on the spelling chart and “ruined the whole thing” according to a little blond girl with curls.  A few minutes before recess I tried to get the kiddos into their outside clothes and out to the playground only to discover that they needed easily five times the minutes I allotted to get ready.  The bell rang to come in as we were making our way out.  “Substitutes!” one little boy sighed rolling his eyes.  Hilarious.  I decided to take them out anyway and we had the playground to ourselves.  “Best recess eva!” a few said.  Back inside, the students couldn’t agree on where the teacher left off in their read aloud book so I read one that I had brought, Socks for Supper by Jack Kent.  We talked for a long time about the story and drew pictures until lunch time.  Just when I thought I was winning them over the same know-it-all girl told me, “You were supposed to take us to the bathroom 15 minutes ago to wash our hands!”  Yikes.  Tough crowd.

The afternoon was better.  The kids had music and gym and I went along with them as part of the class.  They thought that was hilarious and awesome.  I thought they were hilarious and awesome so of course I wanted to hang out with them.  “You’re better as a student”, one of the kids said.  I decided to take that as a compliment.  The last class of the day was math.  That seemed odd to me.  I probably had that wrong.  No – that was the schedule.  A closer look revealed that the end of every day was math.  Interesting.  I told the kids that the best part of the day had finally arrived – math!  They groaned.  Some even looked nervous.  Wow.  Weren’t these kids too young to have an opinion (never mind a negative one) about math?  Apparently not.  I powered through.  I decided to ignore the lesson plan of drilling times tables and played a math game, had them guess my “Mystery Number” and then write as many questions as they could that had an answer of 5.  We ended the day on a high note.  Lots of sharing, happy faces, relaxed postures.  “You are better at math than the other things”, my biggest critic relented.  

Learning from my earlier recess debacle I had those kids packed up and ready for the bus in record time.  As they filed past me one quiet little girl shoved a note in my hands.  It read, “Thank you for teaching me.  You make my work easier.  Too bad you weren’t the realy teacher.  From Sarah”. 
Yup – a pretty perfect day.