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Started off the CMC-South conference this year with a pre-conference session by Dr. Ilana Horn, and it was fabulous (*full disclosure, I’m already in the Ilana Horn fan club)! The session shook my world a little bit, as it pushed back on the idea of “best practices,” specifically that this quick phrase inhibits teacher learning. […]

Started off the CMC-South conference this year with a pre-conference session by Dr. Ilana Horn, and it was fabulous (*full disclosure, I'm already in the Ilana Horn fan club)! The session shook my world a little bit, as it pushed back on the idea of "best practices," specifically that this quick phrase inhibits teacher learning.

I've heard the phrase best practices used so much at schools I've worked at all over the country. It's a go-to phrase for what the person saying it thinks "good teaching" is.

Part of Dr. Horn's message (or at least how I interpreted it) was that we are quick to use this phrase "best practices," but are there even agreed upon best practices for teaching math? Some of the books or articles we might point to are at times in contradiction with other books or articles. Teaching is very contextual and situational, and this phrase removes all that nuance. It makes it seem there are some absolute truths.

As Dr. Horn said, "Teacher knowledge is socially embedded, ambiguous, and contested." It's so complex, that best practices can look different for different teachers, in different years, or across different places.

It reminded me a lot of my DebateMath work and our DebateMath podcast. I want to explore/uncover how complicated and nuanced math is, in the same way Dr. Horn is talking about for this phrase.