Towards Embodying Critically Conscious Mathematics Teaching: Tools, Craft, and Practices

How might we draw on place, culture and identity to co- create a heart- centered, relational mathematics learning experience with our students? As educators, how might we grow our own capacity to relate to our whole selves and each other by centering place in our mathematics teaching? What kind of materials and collective practice might support teaching we find meaningful and restorative? This chapter takes the reader inside a Professional Development/Community of Practice (PD/ CP) created to support mathematics educators in implementing a place- based, culturally affirming mathematics curriculum centering Arizona, its Borderlands and the Southwestern U.S. as land, culture and identity. Drawing on teacher voice, storytelling and other non- dominant ways of knowing, we illuminate tools, crafts and practices utilized in our PD/CP that illustrate how a collective, authentic focus on place can nourish educators' teaching identity, providing them with experiences and resources to renew their mathematics teaching practice for themselves and their students.