Ben, Sam, Kate

I had the tremendous pleasure on Wednesday night of doing math and eating dinner with some spectacular math educators and true superstars of the math education blogosphere. I feel tremendously lucky to know these people personally, to have done math with them and had their inspiring guidance both live and online.

Ben's most recent post has changed my whole thinking about math this week. Not to mention his amazing NYMC Dinner & Math evenings, which were super sweet and brought us all together Wednesday night.
Kate's presence in my classroom today felt like an honor beyond measure, a dream come true, actually. She's such a rockstar.
Doing math with Sam was like going back to the best parts of all my math classes ever. He is oh so good in person, people. I hope you know. Funny, humble, smart, and with the nicest handwriting.

Oh, and both he and Kate own t-shirts that say "I only twitter with math teachers"
Amazing.

I cavalierly told my mom on the phone this morning that mathematics was an activity, not a body of knowledge. Whether this is entirely true, it seems to me that doing math with other people, especially ones who are kind and generous and sincere in their curiosity, is just about the best thing ever. The play of it, the improvisation and interaction of ideas, is wonderful. Sharing a passion for high school education takes the whole thing off the charts. Thank you Ben, Sam, Kate. You keep my dream alive.