Promoting Equity Through Reasoning Summary

The article I chose to discuss in this review is “Promoting Equity Through Reasoning” by Mary F. Mueller and Carolyn A. Maher. This article reflects one of the six principles from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The principle states that succeeding in mathematics requires equity among all students despite race, gender, etc. Teachers should have the same expectations and the same strong support for all students in the classroom. I feel very strongly towards making sure all students are treated equality and that all have high expectations. This is why this article stood out to me out of all of the others.

The main focus of this article is showing that if a teacher teaches equally to all students, then there should only be successful students in our schools. Though this is what everyone expects from teachers, the National Assessment of Educational Progress says that this is not so. In 2000, the

Teachers should give choices to the students. They should be able to decide whether they would prefer to work alone, in pairs, or in small groups. Also, differentiation is key to promoting ideas and thoughts. It is important to make the students ideas public to the classroom for more than one purpose. This is key because when ideas are made known to the classroom, it will spark healthy arguments and communication among peers. Teachers should form a classroom community and make known the goals that the students need to reach together. Setting high expectations for each and every student will lead to success. My thoughts on this are that if teachers would implement this strategy despite differences in students, then our schools would have higher success rates. Equity is very important in the classroom and my beliefs line up with this article exactly. The purpose in writing “Promoting Equity Through Reasoning” is to bring awareness to the issue and to try and find solutions to solving the problem in schools