Do Maths Teachers Think They're Mathematicians?

A topic that pops up time and time again in an online community of maths communicators that I am a member of is who gets to call themselves a mathematician?^[1] Something I've wondered for a while is how maths teachers see themselves: Do they feel comfortable referring to themselves as a "mathematician"? Do they want to be included in that set?

Tokikom. Anboto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I did the only thing that can be done in such situations: I employed that most rigorous of statistical tools, the Twitter poll.

I asked the question:

MATHS TEACHERS:

Are you a mathematician?

(Please see thread for clarification & requests before responding!)

— Tommaths in Museums AMIMA (@TeaKayB) June 2, 2023

Please feel free to visit the original post to read (and maybe contribute to) the full discussion.

2,341 people took part of which ~1,857 provided a useful response (i.e. , not "just show results"). I'm choosing to assume that most of these took part in good faith (i.e. they're actually maths teachers and provided an honest response) but the poll was accessible to anyone with a twitter login who hasn't been blocked by me, so who really knows?

The 'ayes' have it

53.2% of maths teachers who responded to the poll said that they see themselves as mathematicians whilst 23.2% do not. This corresponds to ~1245 yes votes and ~543 no votes: more than twice as many maths teachers believe that they are a mathematician than believe they are not. Around 84 maths teachers (3.6%) said that they didn't know whether they were or not.

Those who responded "yes" and provided commentary agreed, generally, that anyone who in some sense does mathematics is at liberty to call themselves a mathematician. Interestingly, doing maths was implied to be a key criterion by both the yes and no groups, but it's not easy to extract a description of what it means to do maths. Differences between yes and no voters tended to be rooted in either how much maths is done (and whether it's done out of enjoyment or necessity), or what level maths is being done. Some even suggested that only someone who is discovering/inventing/creating "new" mathematics may call themselves a mathematician.

These categories of distinction are echoed by reasons provided by no voters, who seemed to fall into two main camps:

1. those who associate being a mathematician with doing mathematics above a particular level, but the threshold was not clearly defined: some believed themselves to not be a mathematician because they didn't teach A-level maths; others because they hadn't completed a mathematics degree; others still felt that only those doing PhD level mathematics research could realistically refer to themselves as a mathematician. Some merely stated that they didn't "know enough" maths to consider themselves a mathematician
2. those who associate being a mathematician with the desire to do maths beyond that which is necessary for doing their day job. 

Some thoughtful comparisons were provided that might be relevant here: someone may be considered a footballer without playing in the Premier League; a violinist may be considered a musician without composing new music or playing with a national orchestra. Are these valid comparisons? If not, why?

Some I don't knows implied that they felt they wanted to call themselves a mathematician but for various reasons they weren't quite good/clever enough (in some sense) to justify doing so.

A few people responded defensively, or implied that they found merely asking  the question offensive, sometimes mentioning "gatekeeping". This may suggest that some maths teachers have had negative experiences on this theme. Unfortunately (but perhaps also unsurprisingly) most did not respond to further questions.

An unexpected turn of events

A brief conversation highlighted something which may be considered an inverse issue to that which I was intending to investigate: educators at university level who had no problems with calling themselves a mathematician but weren't sure whether they could call themselves teachers.

Whether you like it or not

One or two commenters implied (or outright stated) that everyone is a mathematician whether they like it or not. I can identify with this to a certain degree: it's very difficult to exist as a human being without doing some maths on a regular basis^[2]. But does an occasional necessity to run or catch things make me a sportsperson?

My feelings on the matter

It might be useful to briefly mention my own thoughts as it's entirely possible that these may affect my reportage of these results even though I'm trying to be impartial. Generally, I'm less strict when it comes to awarding somebody the status of 'mathematician'. Partly, this is because maths already has a bit of an image problem and stringent exclusionary criteria for taking part can't be helpful. Partly, it's because any set of criteria wouldn't have to be very strict at all in order to exclude me from the maths party.

Conclusions & further questions

If we make the assumption that twitter polls are legally binding democratic decision making devices, then if you're a maths teacher, congratulations: you're welcome to call yourself a mathematician!

Most of the identified reasons for voting no were rooted in feeling that particular criteria were not being met, but it was not at all clear what these criteria actually were: many comments suggest that falling short in terms of either the quantity or depth of mathematics that is engaged with, or a minimum level of qualification, were key, but there was no agreement (and, actually, very little comment at all) about the specific details of these thresholds. Where is the boundary line between being and not being a mathematician? How would one know if they crossed it? What do people need to aim to achieve in order to be able to add mathematician to their CV? The lack of any kind of consensus on this makes me think that such boundaries are entirely arbitrary, self-imposed acquiescence to something like imposter syndrome: if we've managed to pass a particular milestone it can't have been the one that matters.

Of course, twitter polls are not widely regarded as legally binding democratic decision making devices so the subject is still very much up for discussion: what do you think? Can maths teachers convincingly call themselves mathematicians? Should maths teachers be mathematicians? Does it matter?

I'd welcome your opinions, either in the form of a comment on this post, or by keeping the conversation going over on twitter.

Footnotes

1. After much deliberation the consensus is usually something like you're a mathematician if you think you are. The mathscomm church seems to be a very open one: members tend to want as many people as possible to engage with mathematics so the only gatekeeping is in regards to keeping the hinges well-oiled and making sure the latch doesn't slip down and accidentally shut anyone out. [back]
2. I have a feeling that some would argue with this, but that may be more a symptom of the fact that, certainly in the UK, people seem to have become pretty good at pretending that they're not doing any maths when, in actual fact, they are doing maths. [back]