The Cordeiros´s Setback (PODCAST)

Описание: CSI Mathematics — Anatomy of a Resource (Part 6: The Cordeiro’s Setback)
The origin of this resource goes back to the same student who inspired a previous one, The Remarkable Story of a Remarkable Case: Sofia Marrafa.
Initially, the resource was called Marrafa’s Setback, but it was eventually published after being implemented in a different class — Filipe Cordeiro’s group.
As often happens in my work, students’ names find their way into tests, problems, and stories — not by coincidence, but to bring them into the story (that is, “into mathematics”).
Sofia was disheartened while studying quadratic equations, especially their geometric representation. At one point, she told me that she just felt like throwing her notebook out the window.
Read carefully, her words weren’t really about the notebook — it was mathematics she wanted to throw away.
And that was enough.
From that sentence, another narrative was born. Not to oversimplify, but to uncomplicate. To transform frustration into story, difficulty into movement, and abstract concepts into images that could be inhabited.
As often happens, the whole classroom became part of the story. One of the students was on crutches and, naturally, took on a special role in the narrative.
Because these resources live on what is alive: people, gestures, real circumstances.
Because when mathematics allows itself to be touched by real life, it becomes more livable.
The Cordeiro’s Setback was yet another case where mathematics found its way through narrative — not to hide difficulty, but to make it traversable.
Does it take work? No, making a video doesn’t take some work… it takes a lot of work! But it is this invisible work that gives rise to those moments when a student stops wanting to throw mathematics out the window… and begins, slowly, to bring it back inside.
Teaching is also this: listening to the setback, giving it shape — and returning it as possibility.
Because sometimes, before you can solve an equation, all you need to do is make sure no one throws their notebook out the window.