A Newly Minted Math Teacher

“For transformation, you take a square or triangle and scale or rotate them,” he says. “That’s abstract. Transformation is motion. Sports and dance come to mind. There’s lots more rotational movement in Los Angeles salsa; Cuban salsa has more linear movement.”

Kyaw is a newly minted math teacher. He’s also a Knowles Fellow. The Knowles Teacher Initiative boosts early-career math and science high school teachers by giving them extra funding and support. After Swarthmore, he earned a master’s in education from Stanford University. He recently finished his first year teaching at Thurgood Marshall Academic High School, a public school in the San Francisco Unified School District.

In Myanmar, where Kyaw grew up, there were two stark choices when it came to schooling: public schools controlled by the country’s military leaders, or Western private schools that ignored local history and heritage.

“I saw education used in my own country as a tool of control and indoctrination,” he says. “It could be a tool for great freedom, but it was being used in my experiences as a tool for control and power.”

Now he’s discovered the power of project-based learning.

“Mr. Moe,” as the kids call him, teaches geometry and personal finance. On any given day, you’ll find his students analyzing fictional crime scenes, poring over gerrymandering and food-desert maps, or examining a model of a human knee to understand the math involved in ACL surgery.

When the unit was polygons, Kyaw brought in gerrymandering.

“Math measures for fair or unfair,” says Kyaw. “We can use math to quantify it: How unfair?” The more squiggly the district, the more likely it was gerrymandered. Since many kids want to be veterinarians, Kyaw used Knowles funds to purchase medical imaging equipment. “It’s great to tell them: ‘This is an actual veterinarian ultrasound machine.’”

The most popular unit was criminal justice. Kids used trigonometry to analyze simulated blood spatter, and probability to understand how data can be applied — or misapplied — in court.

“There should be stories behind what you learn,” he says, citing the central role of storytelling in Myanmar’s culture. “Projects offer an easy access point for kids who struggle with math.”

The hardest part of teaching? The gap between educational theory and the real-life classroom.

“Some kids fail math each year and can’t multiply,” he says. “The theory [I learned] at Stanford did not address that.” He also faced common first-year teaching challenges. “I wasn’t taught how to do behavior management very well,” says Kyaw. That’s where being a Knowles Fellow has proved invaluable. Kyaw leans on mentorship support from senior teachers and other early career teachers, meeting with them in person and virtually throughout the year.

Despite the challenges of his first year, Kyaw is ready for more. He plans to continue teaching and someday be a mentor himself. “It keeps you fresh,” he says.