In an effort to put my money where my mouth is, for my final post on student voice I asked students to contribute to the blog. The first two pieces are from recent class experiences, and the last two are general reflections on mathematics. The courage and insights of my students inspire me. Today and every day.

Reflection by Lucy Hoffman:

x⁴ – x² – 12 = 0

When Mrs. Erickson wrote this equation on the board and asked us how to solve it, the first thing I thought of was this:

a = x²    b = –x     c = –12

This was the logical answer for me, but apparently no one else thought of it because when Mrs. Erickson asked if you could use the quadratic formula to solve this, everyone else said no but I said yes! At first no one thought it would work, but when we tried it out, it worked [see work below]. Everyone was pretty excited, especially me, since I’m not usually the one who discovers things in math. I felt really smart, and I was very proud.

 Reflection by Rosemary Brake

The daily warm-up assignment was to write a poem about math:

The universal language

Pulsing through stellar veins

Because how do you put to words

What simple words cannot explain

Reflection by C. C.:

I’ll be honest, my brain doesn’t lean to the left. I flourish naturally in my English classes, but I have to work hard to get that B in calculus. However, I have found that what mathematics has taught me is truly interdisciplinary. Algebra has helped me in Latin and linguistics by teaching me how to rearrange and attack a problem, and I’ll let you in on a secret—I know my critical reading skills wouldn’t be what they are without all those word problems. In the opinion of this humanities student, math is essential to an education. The logical thinking it implements helps me in leadership positions, in essay writing, and in translating Latin and Greek. It was my ninth-grade math teacher, a woman who majored in English in her undergraduate years, who showed me the mathematical qualities of analyzing literature and the ways in which a triangle missing a few angle measurements can be approached like a puzzling poem. Math may not be my forte, but it is woven throughout my life, and the teachers who have shown me that are the ones whom I will always remember.

Reflection by Faolan Sugarman-Lash:

My first memory of math was learning about squares and cubes by looking at beads held together with metal wires. I remember being amazed that there were patterns in every part of math, even the ones that were physically in front of me. This remains true for me today. I love to see the patterns and roots of every piece of math when I get to it. I love that feeling of jumping in head first and figuring out a problem without any previous information about how to do it. Math is amazing in that it is uniform. Every piece of math, except for a few, follows the same rules and regulations—not like in life, where rules are just guidelines—but in math they truly are the basis for everything.

I find it incredible that everything in the world is made up of mathematically coordinated little objects. Even at our base, we are made up of atoms, which are made up of protons, electrons, and neurons. Atoms are stable and work because of the balance between the positive charge of protons and the negative charge of electrons. It really is unbelievable that everything, from the smallest parts of the world to the gravity that holds us to Earth, is made up of and understood through math.

Kathy Erickson, kathyserickson@gmail.com, teaches mathematics at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. She is chair of the editorial panel for NCTM’s Student Explorations in Mathematics and is Rock, Paper, Scissors commissioner for her school. She finds inspiration every day in the mathematical questions, insights, and joys of her students and colleagues