When We Diminish the Math To Protect Ourselves
- Phonisha Hawkins
- Oct 23
- 2 min read
In my fifth year of HQIM work, I’ve realized the hardest part isn’t the systems or the pacing guides. That part runs itself now. The real challenge is what happens when lessons push adults out of their comfort zones. I hear it often, “students can’t do it.” But most times, that’s not about the kids. It’s about us.
Teachers who are used to the safety of “I do, we do, you do” can wrestle when lessons shift toward conceptual, open ended thinking. That includes me. It took years of layering new ways of seeing and teaching math before I could truly move past the comfort of procedures. In my experiences, I’ve seen three things show up.
Confidence. When teachers don’t fully understand the math, they default to the steps. One teacher told me, “I’d rather stick to the procedure than risk messing up the explanation.” And that was her truth.
Pacing anxiety. The moment a student’s thinking slows the lesson, panic sets in. They worry they’re behind when, really, that’s where the learning lives.
Content knowledge. Some can show the trick but not explain the why. And when that happens, they cling to what’s familiar instead of what’s right for students.
The supports teachers need in these moments aren’t more checklists or pacing reminders. They need space to wrestle with the math themselves, coaching that focuses on reasoning instead of routine, and protection for the time it takes to build conceptual understanding. When those supports are missing, “students can’t do it” becomes the easy out.
In 2023 during a coaching collaboration meeting, Dr. Wil Simpson once reminded us to be careful not to diminish the integrity of a lesson just to satisfy content knowledge that isn’t there. #Message. Because when we trim or simplify to make ourselves more comfortable, we lower the ceiling for everyone.
The truth is, it’s not always the curriculum that falls short. Sometimes it’s us. Even the best materials can’t make up for our hesitation to sit in the math, to question it, to understand it deeply. Every time we protect ourselves instead of facing that discomfort, we shrink what our students get to experience.
If we want them to believe they can do it, we have to stop proving to them that we can’t.
As always, thank you for your time. Curriculum is the tool. Efficacy activates it.
Phonisha, your breakdown of confidence, pacing, and content knowledge is so on point, so simple when you map it out, but it lays out a huge array of challenges in the classroom. The concept of confidence speaks to me most. Many practitioners can follow the steps, and even answer many questions, but the deep level understanding is lost. I was one of these teachers. Thanks for normalizing that phenomenon, so we can TALK about it.
During a PLC:
Teacher—This is heavy (when referring to curriculum)
Principal—For who?
Coaching and mentoring allowed the teacher to move forward without predetermining what her scholars can handle.