The REAL Reset: Math Moves That Matter – Tuesday Edition
Productive Struggle System Series: When struggle isn’t a setback, it’s the strategy.
Part 6: Why this can’t be optional anymore
The REAL Story
Public school teachers are doing everything from feeding students to facilitating mental health support.
Teachers are social workers, mental health supports,food providers, trauma-informed responders.
We referee conflict and manage behaviors.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that… we’re expected to teach.
The last thing any teacher is trying to do right now is add another responsibility to the already long list we already have.
The last thing we need is more decision-making layered on top of the thousands we already make every day.
That constant pressure is why so many classrooms feel overstimulating. And not just for students but also for us.
Because we’re carrying everything.
We carry:
Responsibilities that belong to students.
Responsibilities that belong to parents.
Responsibilities that belong to systems outside the classroom.
And when you carry everything, students carry nothing.
When I found myself here,I had to be honest.
I realized that things HAD to change if I was going to remain in this education space.
I cannot be 100% responsible for my teaching and 100% responsible for my students’ learning.
That’s not support. That’s control and borderline insanity because why do I believe I can do everything and more so why do I believe I am responsible for all of this and how the heck is this sustainable?
So I stopped trying to carry what didn’t belong to me.
Most of us mean well. We care deeply. But if we’re honest, a lot of what we do comes from a savior instinct. We want to protect students from frustration, from failure, from discomfort.
I had to confront that in myself. I can support students, guide them, and hold them accountable, but baaaby I can’t save anyone. That’s God’s job.
My role is to teach. Their role is to engage.
And when those lines blur, teachers burn out and students stay dependent.
That’s why I had to implement Productive Struggle in my classroom.
And it wasn’t a one-and-done move. It had to become part of the structure of my classroom.
I had to give students back their role in the learning process.
Because if I rescue, enable, and make everything easier, I remove the very conditions that build ownership.
School is not supposed to make life easier. It’s supposed to prepare students for reality.
And the truth is, some days this work isn’t even about the math.
It’s about equipping students with the skills they’ll need long after they leave our classroom.
How to start when they’re unsure.
How to stay with a task when it gets difficult.
How to be wrong and keep going.
How to take in new information and make decisions based on it.
How to think critically instead of waiting for direction.
How to build confidence in their own reasoning.
Those skills go far beyond the classroom. They matter in real life.
Those things don’t develop because we explained well. They develop because students have been given opportunities to try, struggle, adjust, and try again. Independence isn’t taught in theory. It’s built through experience.
💕 3 Moves That Started Shifting the Responsibility Back to Students
1️⃣ I made entry part of the expectation, not something optional.
Students needed ways to enter a problem that were reliable and repeatable. Techniques they could use again and again. They also needed multiple opportunities to start on their own, sit with what wasn’t clicking yet, and figure out their next move without me guiding every step.
So instead of me being the place they started, I made sure they had strategies, notes, and familiar ways to begin before I ever stepped in. Starting became part of the work, not something they waited for me to do.
2️⃣ I stopped stepping in so quickly when they hesitated.
I used to jump in the moment a student looked unsure, put their head down or expressed visible frustration because I thought that was support. In reality, I was interrupting the thinking before it even had a chance to form.
Once I started holding that space a little longer, students began trying first. They reached for what they knew. They paused, adjusted, and made another attempt. That’s where confidence actually started to build.
3️⃣ I built independence into the structure so students had repeated chances to build capacity.
This wasn’t something I tried once and moved on from. Students needed consistent opportunities to practice starting, staying with something that wasn’t clicking yet, and figuring out what to do next. Because students only get better at those things by doing them. Not hearing about them. Not watching me model them. Practicing them.
The more chances they had to try, adjust, and try again, the stronger they got. They started waiting less. They trusted their thinking more. They stayed with problems longer. Not because I told them to be independent. Because the classroom kept giving them opportunities to build that capacity over and over again.
The Close
I can’t carry the thinking and teach at the same time.
And students can’t build ownership and be rescued at the same time.
That setup doesn’t help anyone. Not me. Not them.
Students need real chances to think, to try, to sit in uncertainty, and to keep moving anyway. That’s not only how ownership forms, it’s how confidence is built.
And if those chances never happen in the classroom, they don’t magically happen later. They will just continue every single school year waiting for the next teacher to do the thinking for them.\
The Productive Struggle mini course opens February 15.
Click the LINK BELOW to get on the Wait List
https://education-evolution.kit.com/ps_mini_course
Tiffany Smith, Ed. D., Your Culturally Responsive Math Specialist
Founder, Education Evolution, LLC | Creator, The REAL Framework™ | Creator of Mind the Gap Curriculum™
"Here’s to classrooms filled with real growth, real talk, and REAL results."
Know someone who’d find this helpful? Forward this email to a colleague or friend who’s passionate about creating real change in the math classroom.
Or tell them to sign up with this link: https://education-evolution.kit.com/a3118d8126
