I’m Evan Rushton,

I throve as a student, everything came easy.

 

Then I became a math teacher.

At a school where: students,

when asked to run a mile in gym shorts,

walked one lap, in street clothes.

 

I fell into a 5-year spiral of depression

taking my inability to counter the student culture as a personal failing.

Every day, I came home exhausted

having lost a series of battles fighting for attention.

 

My personal mindset and my teaching practice

were transformed by The Algebra Project.

 

The turning point occurred while observing a colleague’s class

who worked down the street, serving the same community.

 

I came to his classroom for a week.

I experienced REAL classroom culture,

not <enthusiastic kid voice with hand raised> “I’m doing it for mommy”,

but <authentic voice while gesturing a group> “we’re doing it for us”.

 

Since then, back in my own classroom,

I’d leave school with more energy than I came in with.

 

I came to Stanford’s LDT program

to learn more about designing effective learning experiences

and to create digital tools that support real classroom culture.