Please Don't Do "Connect the Dots": Mathematics Lessons with Social Issues

This article describes research conducted in a junior-level Mathematics for Social Analysis course for elementary and middle grades preservice teachers, as part of the MEPI project. We summarize preservice teachers' overall reflections on their experiences in the course, and we discuss their experiences with writing K-8 mathematics lesson plans/units centered on social issues. We explain preservice teachers' struggles to balance emphases on mathematics, reform-based pedagogy, and social issues in these lessons. We describe the use of traditional and/or nonchallenging mathematics, the trivializing of social issues, the arbitrary connecting of social issues and mathematics, and the creation of artificial connections and questions about the social issues. We conclude by summarizing lessons learned from these challenges.