Chapter 1: Teaching Other People’s Children to Teach Other People’s Children: Reflections on Integrating Equity Issues Into a Mathematics Content Course for Elementary Teachers

In this chapter, I reflect on my experiences teaching a mathematics content course for preservice elementary education students and my attempts to strategically integrate equity considerations into students’ understandings of, and approaches to, mathematics teaching. I discuss why I believe such an integrated approach, which maintains a rigorous and deep commitment to understanding mathematics, is not only in the best interest of my students and the children they will teach but also in the public interest. While the primary focus of this course—one of two required for most students and one of seven required for those seeking a math endorsement—is to help students develop deeper understanding of fundamental mathematics (Ma, 1999), I encourage my students to think about who they will teach, their beliefs about these children, the social conditions in which they live and learn, and what role mathematics has played, and can play, in the lives of their students. In essence, I ask them to think seriously about what it means to teach mathematics to other people’s children.