ex-i-gent \'ek-sə-jənt\ adj
1: requiring immediate action
2: requiring or calling for much
The Exigent Work
Building
Growth Mindset
Exigent uses 4 installments of Paul Tough’s article Who Gets to Graduate? in correlation with our weekly college visits to raise the question and then explore the idea of how a person enters into new spaces as a learner. We push students to think critically about how they are forming their identities as learners.
Engaging in Productive Struggle
Student mastery success is celebrated as a whole class and those who are still working to achieve mastery are celebrated for their efforts and are challenged to not give up until they attain mastery.
Engaging in Playful Curiosity
As much as we value providing our students with the space to explore mathematics through play and discovery, we are equally committed over the summer to invest focused energy into helping students build their procedural fluency in mathematics. We have found that this builds both confidence and joy for our students as it relates to how they view themselves as mathematicians.
Why Exigent?
The Exigent Moment is Now
History is filled with Exigent moments – urgent, pressing, demanding of our full attention. Now is such a time in the city of Chicago as whole classes of 8th graders on the Westside are graduating out of elementary schools that offer no one the opportunity to take Algebra. And concurrently, so too whole classes of seniors on the Westside are graduating out of high schools which offer no advanced math courses beyond the mandatory 3 years required by the State.
Schools without viable 8th grade Algebra programs produce students who go to high school with little-to-no chance of finding a way into a 5th year mathematics course like Calculus. Likewise, students who attend high schools with no options to engage advanced mathematics courses not only severely limit their chances to pursue STEM related fields of study in college, but studies show that students without these options greatly undermine their chances of graduating from college, regardless of major.
Exigent Impacts
Through involvement in Exigent, teachers and students from the following CPS schools have been collaborating to seed, sprout and grow viable advanced math programs in their local buildings.
Austin HS
Under Construction
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Seed, Sprout, & Grow Advanced Mathematics Programs for emerging mathematicians on the West Side who have historically attended schools with little or no advanced mathematics programing in place
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Train, Support, & Encourage Teachers in challenging learning environments as they work to build and sustain advanced mathematics programming in their local schools
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We want our emerging mathematicians to experience challenging mathematics as both play and stretch as they grow their comfort & confidence with manipulating symbolic representations
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Create flexible, multi-on-ramped pathways to Advanced Mathematics for Students who have complex learning pathways due to circumstances beyond their control, recognizing that Wage-Replacement Equity must be addressed for our most financially vulnerable HS students