About Me

This website is run by Emmett Wald (they/them pronouns). I have a lifelong love of learning and teaching, especially mathematics; in the past few years, my newfound interest in programming became another teaching focus.

I am currently enrolled in the M.Ed. program at Westfield State University, with a focus in Mathematics! (Expected graduation May 2024.) I am working towards a Mass. initial teacher’s license in Secondary Mathematics.

I’ve had opportunities to see the ways that students from myriad backgrounds approach math and computer science, and I’m passionate about shifting the fixed mindset that plagues many (if not most) of them. To me, these classes are most valuable when they are less about content and more about concept. I believe that math and computer science education has the potential to help students develop their abilities in critical thinking, spatial skills, number sense, pattern recognition, logic, and creative problem solving; and, with the fostering of a growth mindset, these classes can also teach students persistence, determination, self-confidence, abstraction, communication, and moving past “failure.”

I’m also committed to increasing equity in STEM classrooms, because BIPOC, gender minorities, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, people from lower-class backgrounds, and particularly people at the intersections of these groups still don’t get equal opportunities in STEM fields. I know this exclusion starts at the K-12 level, with stories about who’s “good at math” and who isn’t, a huge differential in science and technology access (both at school and at home), discrimination in how students are “tracked” and marked as exceptional, pedagogical approaches that favor normative white male ways of thinking, and myriad other factors. I’m eager to learn more about the mechanisms that discourage minorities from pursuing STEM, and to find solutions in curriculum and pedagogy to help make STEM classrooms more welcoming and equitable.

When not geeking out about math pedagogy or coding for fun, I spend my time cooking, adoring my kittens, falling down Wikipedia wormholes, gardening, loudly singing along to music, and wandering into rooms and wondering what I’m supposed to be doing there.

You can reach me with questions, comments, math memes, or obscure questions about the Harry Potter series at emmettmwald@gmail.com.