“I hear of people all the time who made choices based on how they felt about themselves as math students,” shares Bootsie Battle-Holt as she explores the very real history of math anxiety. “It’s really poignant that how students feel about themselves as math students makes a tremendous impact on life decisions. One thing I am actually very thankful for with the common core standards is that we give equal credence to the math practices as well as the math content standards, and math practices are something that I think students can find a lot of success in as math students. Things like making sense of problems and preserving and solving them, that’s math practice number one […] math practices are like life practices and there is a place for everyone to find success.”
Fast Facts about Bootsie
- Full name: Bootsie Battle-Holt
- Years teaching: 11
- Grade/Subject taught(s): Middle school math
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Current position: 7th and 8th grade math teacher and math department chair, Los Angeles Unified School District Teacher of the year, 2016-2017 and Los Angeles County Teacher of the Year 2016-2017
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Current City: Los Angeles, CA
- Favorite books:
- Professional: Mathematical Mindsets by Jo Boaler
- Personal:
- Ken Follet’s Century Trilogy
- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
- Wonder by RJ Palacio (young adult fiction)
- Favorite resources:
- LearnZIllion.com for the best open ed resource math lessons
- Math tasks from Dan Meyer
- Weo.io as a platform for test making
- NateBowling.com for keeping it real about equity in education
- Teach Plus for elevating teacher voice across the country
- National Board for Professional Teaching Standards for elevating classroom practice
- Mentioned during our chat:
- “A Teacher’s View on Tenure Reform,” by Bootsie Battle Holt
- Bootsie’s Planning Template
- Bootsie’s Homework/Weekly Assignments Template
- Why teach? “I teach because every kid deserves to spend the school day with people who believe they can aim higher and achieve more than they thought possible; and I love working in a school community that shares those high expectations for all kids.”
Noteworthy Outtakes from Bootsie’s Chat
From her honest dissection of mathematical anxiety and the long term affect it can leave on people whose math avoidance goes beyond the classroom, to her passion for educational policy and vision for teacher training reform – Bootsie shares her journey to the classroom and to the oval office where she met with former President Barack Obama to discuss “the ballooning of standardized testing.”
Along with that, Bootsie shares her experience teaching in the same school where her children attend and how’s she’s been able to manage seamlessly incorporating her teacher life with her parent life. As a parent to children in the public school system and a passionate educator, Bootsie is a fierce advocate for teacher development and education policies that can empower our teachers to engage and teach to the whole child and not only to the test.
“Seize opportunities to talk to other teachers, seize opportunities for professional development,” says Bootsie. “As a teacher a lot of people will come to you with a lot of requests and you can’t say yes to all of them but, seize opportunities to be part of the bigger picture and step out of your own classroom see what’s happening in education at large.”
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