What’s love got to do, got to do with it?
-Tina Turner

Often when I ask aspiring teachers why they want to step into the profession they eventually talk about their love of children and how they want to teach in order to help children become the best version of themselves…or something to that effect. The end might not be the same but usually it starts with this expression of love. But what does that look like in the classroom. What does it mean to teach as an act of love? As an act of unconditional love, better known as agape?

For my dissertation study I sought an answer to that question, but started with finding what other people have to say about it and formulating a response. What follows in this episode of the Amidon Planet Podcast is Sam Gilbert, an elementary teacher, doctoral candidate, and teaching assistant at the University of Mississippi’s School of Education, and I discussing an article that contains my response to the question, what does it look like to teach mathematics as an act of unconditional love?

Enjoy!

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Links

Amidon, J. (2013). Teaching mathematics as agape: Responding to oppression with unconditional love. Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, 6(1), 19–27. Retrieved from http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/207/132

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