A TALLY of my thoughts
SUBTITLE: Why it is important to always center student reasoning, look at student work and adjust your teaching (aka formative assessment) and what that has to to with my city in 2026.
Greetings from Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is January 27, 2026. My city and state have been in the national and international news cycle for a while now. I am exhausted, angry, resolved and appreciative of the people I call neighbors. The events in my city are personal. I live right in the middle of things. The 2 big recent events that made international news both happened within blocks of two different family members homes and numerous friends. The schools I have taught at are in these same neighborhoods.
I have not written a blog post in over five years. And I am not sure anyone will see this anymore, but tonight I am writing as a form of journaling. If you do read this, I would love you to send me a message her or on any platform.
Tonight I was cleaning out some old papers and came across student work from eight years ago at a HS near all the chaos. The students in my Algebra 2 class would be 25 years old right now.
Here is one of the pieces of that student work.
When I saw this student work, I thought, “Wow, I love my students. We had so little time and look how much data they tallied.”
I taught amazing students high school mathematics with a large number of Multi Lingual students. All my students were hard working, smart, passionate and made amazing growth in math over the year. Many of these students are from groups being vilified in national media. The two students who recorded the data above are not currently being targeted or called out. They look like my three nephews who live in the same neighborhood. They walk with priviledge and are most likely have not been in hiding the last few months if they still live here.
On this day, I was teaching a probability unit to Algebra 2 students and we were collecting data that we would use in class the next day. In all three of my Algebra 2 classes of 35+ students I was rushing my students in the last 10 minutes of class (I did not get the timing right in the lesson that day). We were collecting data in pairs from a probability experiment. Between my three classes we were trying to get as much data (1000 trials or more) that I would consolidate overnight for the next day.
Students were working hard. Here is another piece of data I collected.
When I saw this student work I shook my head and thought, “Ugh, this is going to be annoying to count. I wish these were tallied in sets of five to make the work faster. Also, they did not do the experiment too many times”.
The two students in this piece of work are currently being targeted in my city. The are citizens, but their names cause them to be racially targeted. As I watch what is going on in my city in 2026, I hope that the licence plates on their cars they drive are not tagged to their last names. I wish they had nordic last names right now like Johnson, Nelson or Olson. There is lots of data being collected on citizens of all backgrounds – most likely myself, because I have been and will continue to go where people are collecting data.
For the last 20+ years I have been advocating for more data literacy education for every student in K-12 math classrooms. I believe we can improve our nation by increasing statistical literacy skills. I want every American to ask questions when they see a graph, a data visualization. I want them to ask critical questions about how a statictic was calculated. Where did the data come from? Who does it represent? Who does it not represent.
What do you notice about the first two pieces of student work? Scroll up and look at the two pieces.
How are the two pieces of work the same?
How are they different?
I did not notice anything until I collected 55+ strips of data like this at home that evening.
Do you see what I see?
Meanwhile, 8 years ago, before I was collecting the data, I was lovingly encouraging my students to collect data faster, and faster, saying…
“Hurry, tally, your results!”
“Quick! Tallly as many as you can”
“I want at least 50 tallies from every group”
My students were amazing. They were focused, doing the experiment over and over again, collecting data. Data we would analyze the next day. I was doing it! I was helping my students build statistical literacy skills!
That evening I also saw this piece of data from 2 of my favorite students (I know, I know teachers should have favorites).
What do you notice now?
Compare this student work to the other two pieces above.
What is the same? What is different?
When I saw this piece of student work I almost cried. I thought, I have failed my students. I knew better.
These two students like the previous student work, both were MLL students. Specifically, these two dear students have to hear really powerful people attacking their cultural identity every day. They’ve been painted as villians. I am really worried for them. I want to scream at the media, people in our nation, people in may state who agree with the powerful voices. What I know for sure, is if you are saying these things, you have not been in relationship of any kind (teacher to student, neighbor to neighbor) with people like my students. If you were, you could not morally say the things you are saying.
Back to eight years ago….I have done a deep dive over the last 30+ years on best practices in the math classroom for MLL math students. I’ve implemented so many strategies with great success. I’ve done a ton of PD on this, all over the United States. I’ve written about in this blog. Here is one blog post I wrote years ago about ‘Pairing Language’ in the classroom. If you had oberved me during this era you would have heard me pair academic terms with casual definitions 25 or 50 or 100’s of time every class period. I was good at it.
When I saw the third piece of work and saw the word ‘Tally‘ written over and over again. I heard my words from earlier in the day.
“Hurry, tally, your results!”
“Quick! Tallly as many as you can”
“I want at least 50 tallies from every group”
My dear students were working hard to plese me. They had no idea what the word ‘tally‘ meant. Why would they? ‘Tally‘ is not in the first 100 or even first 10,000 English language words you learn. Why would they know to make four slashes and on the fifth data point draw a slash across the first four and then start over again?
I could have so easily paired the word ‘tally‘ with a GIF like the one above on my smartboard. That is all it would have taken. less that 5 seconds for me to bring equity of experience to my students.
The next day in class I resolved to get back to doing a better job of scaffolding the learning experience, use evidence based stratigies that I had used forever and not prividedge only some students whose first language from birth was English.
I resolved to work to not rush students when it was my poor planning of timing for that lesson.
In the works of Maya Angelou, “When we know better, we do better.”
I have kept this student work for 8 years. Why? I do that. I keep things that remind me that as a teacher I can do better. If you ever come into one of my work spaces you might see seemingly random things, student work or photos. They are there to encourage me to see my students in their whole selves. To study them. To know their communities. What they love. What they don’t like.
Student work is just one way I learn about my students and more importantly how I can do better as an educator to support them. I learn everyday.
If you come to my office tomorrow, you will see this piece of work hanging near where I work. I know all of are students are highly capable and it is my job to support them.
One hope for my city and my state in January 2026 is that everyone who enters Minneapolis will see every resident – regardless of status – as a beatiful human being deserving of respect and with amazing value and potential. I hope if they run into the students above, now adults, they shake their hand and celebrate them. I hope that people who look like me will continue to raise our voices and advocate for every resident. My city is strong. We are resiliant. May what is going on, end here and not move on to where you are.
I currently have a tally going on a post-it note. I hope it ends here. I never want to do the third, fourth or fifth vertical tally mark ever.
RIP Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. I will work to not let us add one more tally mark.
Finally, three things I am loving right now that can support statistical literacy:
- Jenna Laib’s ‘Slow Reveal Graphs‘ routine. Every K-12 math educator should be using these resources regularly. If you are a leader, you should not put a data visual in front of your staff without using this routine. Teachers will do what they see modeled for them.
- Minneapolis Math Leader Mark Trushkowsky has a collection of Slow Reveal Graphs – and some of them are new ones he created with current events in our city. Support Minnesota. Use his graphs.
- I am loving the ‘Dear Data Routine’. It’s a book and more. I have big plans for this in MN.
If you got this far in my post, three things.
- Thank you for listening to me journaling what is in my head.
- I wrote this in one long stream of conciousness. You are reading my first draft and only draft. If I don’t hit send now, you will never see this. Be kind if you see mistakes.
- If you want me to occasionally get back to writing again about the things I’m finding as I am cleaning out a bunch of paper work from my teaching days, let me know below. I am hopeful that things in my city will get better for everyone and my posts will be nerdy once again.
P.S. February 13, 2026 or 2/13/26 is Multiplication Day! 2×13=26. How are you going to celebrate? I am going to eat foods I can group into equal sized groups. Peas. M&M’s…. One way to deal with stress is to embrace joy – even if you have to make up math holidays.
