Students Speak: The Value of Being an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant
Gustavo Flores
Over the course of my secondary school years, I watched as my peers gradually sorted themselves into two neatly divided categories: math people and not-math people, a dichotomy reinforced by our teachers. As the latter group continued to grow year after year, I questioned whether my classmates and I were all receiving the same math instruction. How did so many of them grow to despise something so complex, so beautiful?
The pieces started coming together when I got to Carleton. Suddenly, math lectures were collaborative spaces, homework required creative thinking, and professors were constantly available when we needed assistance — “math class” simply had a different meaning. Of course, Carleton math courses were challenging. But more importantly, professors (and the department at-large) offered support so students could overcome the challenges they faced. I managed to thrive despite my mathematical upbringing, and my peers were not so lucky.
Still, I continued to watch in dismay as some of my college friends insisted that they “are not a math person” or even declared outright their hatred of math, while other friends spoke emphatically about math with the same zeal I did. The math/not-math person binary persisted in the face of a completely different academic environment — a wake-up call that this issue was much more systemic than I originally thought. As a result, more questions came to my mind: Who does math belong to? How do societal inequities inform the distribution of math ownership? How do we broaden the reach of math ownership?
In pursuit of answers to these questions, I enrolled in a class titled Methods of Teaching Mathematics. Though difficult, this course was extremely rewarding, and I certainly received the answers I was looking for. I learned that mathematics is a human endeavor belonging to us all, and that there are many ways to do math. I learned that, despite this, access and opportunity to do mathematics is highly unevenly spread. I learned that math is often dehumanizing—that many people (including myself) harbor deep, math-related trauma. Nevertheless, I learned that there is hope for math education, that incredible people are at the forefront of a movement revolutionizing its landscape as we know it. I learned that I want to be part of this change.
During this same academic term, I was a teaching assistant for Introduction to Calculus with Problem Solving, giving me the opportunity to engage (at least in a small way) in the revolutionary movement I became infatuated with. This course is very special because Calculus I the lowest-level math class offered at Carleton and the Problem-Solving component was specifically designed for students who felt that their mathematical background was weak. As a TA, I was a role model for other marginalized students in the department, and I helped bolster their calculus foundation to ensure their success in future math classes. Students who struggled through elementary algebraic manipulations in the first week of class were computing Riemann integrals after just nine weeks. I am very grateful to have made a positive impact on their mathematical journeys and expand math ownership to include them.
Being a TA also came with its challenges, and ones that I am happy I encountered. It was a very different thing to read about creative, trailblazing math pedagogy and to implement it in TA sessions myself. I had to make conscious efforts not to emulate the aspects of teaching that I found harmful of my own high school math teachers and to create a space for my students that gave them the opportunity to thrive mathematically. I also made sure to humanize the experiences my students had during my TA sessions, reminding them that I (like them) am a student at Carleton and that I have my own mathematical struggles. My students let me know that they truly appreciated my efforts, which was very heartwarming. Being a TA was an incredibly fulfilling endeavor that I’m excited to do again.
Teaching assistantships should be more widely available to undergraduate students because they provide a much more meaningful experience than, say, grading a course. Being a TA also gives undergraduates the opportunity to build community within their math department and understand what it’s like to teach a class — a nice, low-stakes preview of what a graduate TAship in their future may look like.
Gustavo Flores is a Mexican-American math major at Carleton College who hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in mathematics and eventually change the landscape of mathematics education.