Performing Math A History of Communication and Anxiety in the American Mathematics Classroom : A History of Communication and Anxiety in the American Mathematics Classroom

## How Math Anxiety Became about Written Testing 115 Conclusion: Math Communication from STEM to STEAM Preface • xv the choice is surprising. Poking fun at the hyperbolic rationales surrounding STEM, Hacker proposes PATH instead: an acronym for the power of "Philosophy, Art, Theology, History" or for "Poetry, Anthropology, Theater, Humanities." "We are falling behind our competitors in PATH pursuits, " Hacker booms (facetiously). "If our nation is to retain its moral and cultural stature, we must underwrite a million more careers in PATH spheres every year. If we do not, we may continue to lead in affluence, but we will decline as a civilization."10 As Hacker's half-hearted jokes make clear, there are not so many incentives for requiring PATH today. Though my students' familiarity with math remains strong, they encounter theater less and less. Very few of them have acted, hung lights, painted sets, or otherwise helped put on a show. Almost none of them have ever read a play or seen a production. In fact, almost none of them have even been inside any performing space! I find I need to write this book not just because of the hatred of math but also because of the neglect of theater. Even with all these interlinked experiences, the idea of "performing math" was somewhat unexpected and came from a surprising discovery-or maybe I should say realization-that I had unique access to a math play from 1886! The Mathematikado, written, produced, and performed by Vassar students, was a send-up of Gilbert and Sullivan's opera Mikado but rewritten about math class. Literary critic Laura Kasson Fiss had bought herself the libretto at a used bookstore because she thought it nicely combined (and made fun of ) our joint interests. Then it sat on our shelves (taken down time and again if we needed a laugh) for about seven years. One day, in research positions at our alma mater, we realized that it fit with the West Point doodle, the math diaries, campus traditions, and the recent scholarship about play and performance. Plus, we quickly realized, though writers and archivists had compiled clippings about The Mathematikado from historical newspapers, no one else had a full record of the play.11 It was the perfect opportunity. The Mathematikado libretto quickly showed how a performative approach to math communication interested people beyond our scholarly subfields. In 2015, I began presenting about The Mathematikado to other historians of science. It went so well that I was invited back the next year as part of the featured roundtable about performing science. It coincided with a professional meeting for academics interested in the integration of the sciences and the arts, and "performing science" allowed the coordination of programs among historians, artists, activists, and literary critics. Then the next year, colleagues at the British Science Association decided to sponsor Laura and me to give a Mathematikado lecture-performance at their British Science Festival! With a little help from our (British) friends, we organized the singing of four math songs and together gave a lecture explaining the significance of the document. It nicely appealed to STEM aficionados as well as students, journalists, and Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiasts. There was even a little media coverage because it seems xvi • Preface the British public was curious about what Americans had done to their cultural treasure.12 (Answer: They made it about math!) It encouraged interest in performance, history, math, and studenthood, and it began to show how those areas should be considered together. The project generated so much interest because it was not just about any historical students performing math-it was about women performing math. The Mathematikado proved to be a spectacle in the 1880s because educated women were still under a tremendous deal of scrutiny. It was widely touted that women's college education was an "experiment, " one that might end in failure. Today, The Mathematikado remains a spectacle because there is still a tremendous gender disparity in math specifically. Though many have tried to explain the phenomenon through significant sociohistorical analyses or idealized understandings of the brain or biology, the low numbers of women in math have remained a serious concern.13 The play can provide hope for a different future by presenting a different story of the past, one where women can do math and have fun while doing it. Despite the power of that case, Performing Math has to incorporate The Mathematikado into broader arguments about math communication and the role of performance. For one thing, though The Mathematikado seems to be about STEM enthusiasm, it should be understood within the broader dynamics of college students expressing their hatred of math. After all, when young men at Harvard or the Stevens Institute of Technology reported on the production in the 1880s, they thought that was what the Vassar students were doing. They made connections to their own campus traditions, ones that centered on the destruction of school property, even though nothing was explicitly destroyed in The Mathematikado.14 In fact, as in chapter 4, student reporters at other universities recognized the Vassar performers as college students because of the play's supposed commentary on the hatred of math. Therefore, even as early as the 1880s, arguments existed that linked The Mathematikado to other artifacts of math communication: doodles, diaries, campus traditions, and other plays, as well as blackboards, classrooms, exams, and textbooks. The frame of "performing math" still does connect to questions of the hatred of math, as well as many other potential reactions. It allows a way to incorporate various student activities of math communication, including but not limited to theatrical performing. "Performing Math tells the history of expectations for math communication-and the conversations about math hatred and math anxiety that occurred in response. Focusing on nineteenth-century American colleges, this book analyzes foundational tools and techniques of math communication: the textbooks that supported reading aloud, the burnings that mimicked pedagogical speech, the blackboards that accompanied oral presentations, the plays that proclaimed performers' identities as math students, and the written tests that redefined "student performance." Math communication and math anxiety went hand in hand as new rules for oral communication at the blackboard inspired student revolt and as frameworks for testing student performance inspired performance anxiety. With unusual primary sources from over a dozen educational archives, Performing Math argues for a new, performance-oriented history of American math education, one that can explain contemporary math attitudes and provide a way forward to reframing the problem of math anxiety"-- Provided by publisher

Performing Math tells the history of expectations for math communication—and the conversations about math hatred and math anxiety that occurred in response. Focusing on nineteenth-century American colleges, this book analyzes foundational tools and techniques of math communication: the textbooks that supported reading aloud, the burnings that mimicked pedagogical speech, the blackboards that accompanied oral presentations, the plays that proclaimed performers' identities as math students, and the written tests that redefined "student performance." Math communication and math anxiety went hand in hand as new rules for oral communication at the blackboard inspired student revolt and as frameworks for testing student performance inspired performance anxiety. With unusual primary sources from over a dozen educational archives, Performing Math argues for a new, performance-oriented history of American math education, one that can explain contemporary math attitudes and provide a way forward to reframing the problem of math anxiety.

Cover 1 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 8 Preface 10 Introduction 20 1. How Math Communication Has Started with Reading Aloud 34 2. How Math Communication Has Been Practiced in Prohibited Ways 55 3. How Math Anxiety Has Developed from Classroom Tech 84 4. How Math Communication Has Been Theatrical 110 5. How Math Anxiety Became about Written Testing 134 Conclusion: Math Communication from STEM to STEAM 162 Acknowledgments 174 Notes 176 Index 206 About the Author 216