An Apologist Winsome and Sure: Caroline Ong’s “Math is Beautiful High Horse” Example

My favorite method for cultivating Value in the hearts of your students for the work of your discipline is called “An Apologist Winsome and Sure.”

That's a weird title — purposefully so — so let me briefly explain what I mean.

An apologist is someone who makes a case for something that's controversial. But this summer, I learned a bit more about the roots of the word. It has two parts:

• Appo — meaning “out from, out of”
• Logos — meaning “reason, meaning, order, speech”

A teacher who is an apologist, then, is someone from whom words about the meaning and reason of what you do in your class flow out.

I picture a fountain that's ever bubbling with water, the nourishing stuff of life.

• The ELA teacher who is an apologist for English language arts is like a bubbling brook; he's always nonchalantly crafting these “positive micro moments” (language our ELA colleague David Reese created) in which the class gets to marvel at the wonders of language.
• The personal finance teacher who is an apologist for personal finance is like a bubbling brook; she's always going off on micro-tangents of how cool and neat and useful and meaningful personal finance can be.
• The math teacher who is an apologist for mathematics is like a bubbling brook; she's reliably springing forth with the reason, meaning, beauty, and order of math.

And speaking of math, let's close with a brief video example of what I'm talking about. This comes from Caroline Ong, a mathematics teacher based in Texas.

We'll use this video again as we deepen our grasp of this “An Apologist Winsome and Sure” strategy. But for now, let's agree on a couple things:

• She's giving reasons for mathematics (from point 1:20 in the video until the end) — in other words, she's giving an appo-logos, an apologetic;
• These reasons are flowing out of her in a way that exudes her enjoyment of what she's speaking about — this is winsome — and her confidence in it — this is sure.

I want you to do two things with this:

• Go have a ball briefly ranting at times about how beautiful and lovely and powerful and cool your discipline is.
• Do this as often as you can. You want it to be normal for your students to see An Apologist Winsome and Sure — not the exception, but instead the rule.

More to come.