Joan Countryman

"Writing can provide opportunities for students to construct their own knowledge of mathematics.  Writing gives them a chance to practice inferring, communicating, symbolizing, organizing, interpreting, linking, explaining, planning, reflecting, and acting.  Writing helps students make sense of mathematics.  Mathematics helps students make sense of the world."

Joan Cannady Countryman preaches the virtues of using writing as a means of learning mathematics.  She taught mathematics for 23 years at Germantown Friends School before taking her present position as Head of Lincoln School in Providence, Rhode Island.  A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and Yale, Ms. Countryman is a former Fulbright Fellow and Columbia University Klingenstein Fellow.

Ms. Countryman has lectured at the University of Pennsylvania and served as a consultant to the School District of Philadelphia.  She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in 1985 and conducted Wilson Foundation summer institutes for the next four years.

Ms. Countryman speaks to audiences throughout America on the uses of writing in the mathematics classroom and is an expert on the controversial topic of gender equity in mathematics education.  Her writings include Writing to Learn Mathematics and Black Images in American Literature.