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Today, we celebrated our belated Pi Day! It was delayed due to inclement weather…

Though my #MTBoS friends were there to comfort me in my time of need!

@bkdidact that’s the rounded up version anyway, none of this truncated 3/14 crap
— Jonathan (@rawrdimus) March 13, 2017

Our spring trimester focus is always financial literacy. So, we spent most of last week researching recipes, planning for a shopping trip, going to the bank, shopping for ingredients, and making pies. Yes, I said it. We made pies for Pi Day, sue me! Now, finally the time had come to eat our pies, but first…we had to do some more math!

First we reviewed of some of the digits of Pi, highlighting that when rounded to the nearest hundredth it matches the numerical date of March 14th, which is subsequently known as “Pi Day” for this reason. I also wore my Pi shirt, which gives the students an opportunity to see that there are A LOT of digits in this number known as Pi and that I’m a nerd. We did, however, skip the traditional digit memorization activity for several reasons including working memory and tedious boredom.

Instead we estimated, explored, and discovered the circumference formula with our pies and some string.

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Disclaimer

I’ve tried to write this post many times. Each time I write the opening sentence, it seems to pale in comparison to the grand scope of what it should encompass. Access and equity is a huge topic, not only in math classes, but in education at large. Often equity is discussed in terms of gender, socio-economic, racial, or sexual orientation. These conversations are also vital, but this post will focus on equity for students with disabilities through access to rich mathematics curricula. However, writing a post about access for students with disabilities in robust math classes is still a daunting task. Since I believe in the importance of this topic I’m going to just begin, though I’ll probably regret how I began once I’ve finished.

Preface

When one considers how to create an accessible math class for students with disabilities it is generally done through deficit thinking. “My students can’t do _____, so what interventions can I implement to fix their deficits?”

At one level, the evolution of deficit thinking in special education stemmed from beliefs that, although some individuals functioned in ways considered “subnormal,” they were still humans and deserved to be educated. A review of the history of the development of programs for children with mild disabilities reveals that, in the early 1800’s, advocates of the child saving theory attempted to determine the etiology of students’ symptoms that resulted in learning and behavior problems.

These psychologists, physicians, and educators developed therapies and instructional interventions designed to improve the educational outcomes and quality of life of individuals with disabilities (Trent, Artiles & Englert, 1998).

Unfortunately, the idea of intervention is inextricably linked to deficit thinking and the belief that students with disabilities are not “normal.” I can’t help but disagree with this. Concepts like neurodiversity and presumed competence provide a much more equitable stance on how students with disabilities should be viewed and treated in the school environment. With this in mind, here are two effective lesson planning guides to increase access to rich mathematics for students with disabilities in your classroom.

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