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Ralph Pantozzi

Five Questions with Ralph Pantozzi, a 2024-2025 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow at the Library of Congress

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This post is by Ralph Pantozzi, a 2024-2025 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow at the Library of Congress.

Tell us a bit about yourself.  

I’ve taught mathematics in New Jersey for 32 years, from grade 6 through calculus. For 23 of those years I served in supervisory positions, observing and evaluating teachers and leading math departments of up to 40 teachers. For a decade I also trained pre-service teachers as they entered the profession. I share the teaching methods I use in my classroom with others through conference presentations, workshops, and math organizations, advocating for math instruction that inspires students to come back to class the next day to ask new questions and to continue to do so long after they finish their last math class.

At home I love to read and learn about the history of many things, from the meanings of words to how the states of the United States got their shapes, to science and technology and the whole cosmos itself. I love astronomy, genealogy, and time with my family and many relatives across the world.  

How has using primary sources changed your teaching?  

I’m very new to primary sources! So right now I’m in the “getting to know them” phase.  As a math teacher with a keen interest in history, however, I’m thinking about how I can use primary sources to strengthen students’ skills at asking questions and encourage them to pursue answers. There are opportunities to notice, wonder, and make connections between the past and the present, and anticipate what may happen in the future. Students often think that they have to leave their history, English, or science skills at the door when they enter math class, but this is not the case!  In each of these subjects, we want students to make conjectures and then gather evidence to support their claims.  

I expect I will use the primary sources I will find here at the Library to illustrate that math can be found everywhere, and that there is joy in the process of bringing a mathematical perspective to our experience of the world around us.  

What prompted you to apply to be an Einstein Fellow?  

I first heard about the Einstein Fellowship at an NCTM Conference some years ago. I love Washington, DC and the opportunity to live here for a year, having time to visit the sites, museums, and educational institutions, has long been a draw. I’d been yearning to bring a more interdisciplinary angle to my teaching, and after a gentle push from a prior Fellow at last year’s NCTM conference, I decided the time was “write” to put my application together. The placement at the Library was a dream come true.  

What are your goals for your year as an Einstein Fellow?  

“Around the World in 11 Months” is my motto: I want to take in all the sights that the Library and the Fellowship have to offer, making sure to encounter ideas and ways of thinking from a diverse set of people and cultures. Eleven months will go by quickly, and I would like to be more than a visitor. Since the world of mathematics sometimes feels  like an island unto itself, my goal is to develop trade routes and exchanges between educators in different academic areas. I expect to come out of this experience with deeper connections to the world.  

What advice would you give to teachers who want to use primary sources in classroom activities given the push to meet standards and insure success on standardized tests?  

Stories, images, songs, and sounds are the glue that holds our memories of facts and figures together. To use a different analogy, students will recall what they can find a route to in their minds. When I prepare my students for standardized tests, I work to help them tell a story that will link the facts together and help them find their way to an answer when they feel lost. Standardized tests are full of questions that may feel like surprises, but when one has had many encounters with the information in multiple formats, the questions can feel more familiar.  

Primary sources are a great means to attach meaning to what students are learning, help students identify the same math across different contexts, and find their way to the memories they need to call upon to answer the question on the test. 

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Comments (2)

  1. Terrific post, Ralph! I consider myself lucky to be on that 11-month journey with you!

  2. My name is saadeldin abady 37 years old from Egypt, without the past we will not find great future but when we keep the past for the past we will looking to Brilliance future for our generation in the present, I can’t answer to your another questions because I wanna leave your library, from me to you more and more of a respect because you are 🌟great teacher🌟 💚thank you so much much💫.

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