073 – S3 E10 – “When we use math in the world, it's always in a collaborative environment.” - Kentaro

homeroom is an international podcast bridging the education gap between the classroom and the living room by starting conversations impacting the next generation. In this episode, I speak with Kentaro, a math teacher, curriculum developer, and teacher trainer—about his early memories of being an internally motivated child and student. I ask him about the cultural and socioeconomic differences between his home life growing up, and the private high school he went to after attending public schools through the 8th grade. We talk about his journey back to the classroom for 16 years as a math teacher, and how that experience led to him earning what he calls his mid-life crisis doctorate at Harvard to make a more system-wide impact. We also discuss how he and others have humanized how math is taught by examining and tackling power structures, and also the promising strategies that current research is telling us about how to close the achievement gap. This is an important conversation about both the tangible practices and mind shifts we need to apply in measuring the success of our students going forward. Check out our conversation, join our ongoing discourse on social media, and subscribe for more. https://www.instagram.com/homeroomed You can also find a computer-generated transcript of our episode at https://www.homeroomed.com — Kentaro, the son of immigrants from Japan, experienced first-hand the dissonant extremes in our education system, attending failing public schools through 8th grade and then an incredibly resourced private high school on scholarship. These disparate educational experiences highlighted the stark contrast in our schooling system and compelled Kentaro to provide the highest quality education to students furthest from the center, driven by a deep call to equity and social justice. A math teacher at heart with 16 years of classroom experience, Kentaro relentlessly sought out instructional approaches that worked with his students out of a deep sense of desperation. While department head at the fifth lowest performing high school in California, Kentaro increased AP math enrollment by 400% while also increasing passing rates on AP math exams. In 2011, Kentaro was honored to receive the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching at the White House. Kentaro led statewide math initiatives and trained over 2000 math teachers and leaders while director at non-profit ConnectED. He wrote math curriculum used by over 350,000 students for Agile Mind through the Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Kentaro has served as co-chair of Harvard’s Data Wise Network, as a founding member of the Racial Equity Council at the NewSchools Venture Fund, and as adjunct faculty at San Francisco State University. Kentaro is National Board Certified and holds a BA from Stanford, a doctorate in education leadership from Harvard, and a Superintendent’s License from Massachusetts. Most importantly, Kentaro is a husband to an amazing special educator and father to two remarkable teenagers. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kentaro-iwasaki/ https://www.concentricmath.com https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/edcast/24/03/math-great-potential-equalizer — Rée is a visual storyteller and educator exploring the consequences that mass education has on creativity, identity, and interpersonal connection. https://www.instagram.com/theinterdisciplinarian — References Complex instruction (website) Detracking + Heterogeneous groupings (article) Only For My Kid by Alfie Kohn (article) Cambridge Rindge and Latin (Wikipedia article) https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/128664.C_Otto_Scharmer (website) Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows (book) The Forest School (website) On Being with Father Richard Rohr (interview transcript) Rehumanizing Math by Rochelle Gutierrez (video)