This is a milestone for me. I have been at my school for ten years, and this is the start of my eleventh. It’s the only school I’ve worked at. That’s a testament to my school, but more specifically, to my colleagues.

Last year, my school’s awesome director of communications contacted the math department to let us know that the one issue of the magazine she publishes four times a year was going to focus on math. And she wasn’t kidding! The cover of the magazine had most of my multivariable calculus kids on it (thinking deeply at the math-art show I helped put on last year)!

One of my favorite things is that the feature article with an alliterative title, Making Math Meaningful, was simply the transcript of a roundtable discussion we had. A bunch of math teachers got in a room around a big table, and we were led by our director of communications who had done her research and come with some questions. There was a digital recorder in the center of the table. And through talking with carefully crafted prompts, we got to think deeply and collectively about our own practice. I can’t even tell you how interesting it was to listen to my colleagues during that facilitated conversation, and how proud I was to be in a school with such like-minded folks that I have the opportunity to learn from. (If you’re a department chair or academic dean, consider doing this!)

I wish I could just post a PDF of the article for you to read, but alas, the whole magazine is online but can’t be downloaded. Here are two quotations to whet your appetite:

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So if you want to read about a department that is doing strong work moving towards inquiry-based learning, and read the words of real teachers having a real conversation playing off of each other, I highly recommend you:

1. Go to this site
2. Make the magazine full screen
3. Read pages 18 to 29

That is all!