I Heard an Educator Say, “I Bet Ms. Fraser Doesn’t Know.”

I was 30 and in my second year as a Math Supervisor and I had just finished leading a learning lab with a group of high school mathematics educators that I supervised when we reached an Algebra II problem involving an exponential equation. Three educators were working together trying to determine the solution, and I could tell they were unsure about how to proceed. They were standing up, hunched over the problem, eyebrows perplexed, hands on their chin, but stuck in a loop. One of them quietly tapped a colleague and whispered, “We’re about to ask Ms. Fraser, but I bet she doesn’t know.” They had no idea I heard them.

Now, the first thought that went through my head was, “Oh, do not play with me. I know my stuff.” By that point in my career, I had spent years studying mathematics, teaching it, writing curriculum, coaching educators, and supporting mathematics instruction. There was absolutely a part of me that wanted to turn around and let them know I had heard every word. But I also knew that if I embarrassed them in that moment, I would shut down the exact kind of curiosity and vulnerability I wanted educators to bring into our work together. They would become more concerned about saying the wrong thing in front of me than actually wrestling with the mathematics.

So I walked over and worked through the problem with them. We solved the mathematics together. I explained my reasoning, listened to theirs, and gave them enough space to ask questions without feeling small.

I never mentioned the comment.

I let the mathematics speak for itself, and something shifted after that day. The way that educator interacted with me changed. The questions changed. The respect changed. I did not have to announce that I knew the mathematics because they had an opportunity to experience my expertise for themselves.

Now here’s the mirror. 🪞 Leadership will eventually place you in a moment where your expertise is questioned, but teaching will also place you in moments where someone else’s knowledge is incomplete. In both situations, what we do with what we know matters. As leaders, we can use our expertise to protect our ego, or we can use it to strengthen the educators we support. As mathematics educators, we make that same decision every time a student gives an answer that does not make sense to us, asks a question we think they should already know, or struggles with mathematics we have understood for years.

That educator needed to know whether I could actually help them. Their question may not have been delivered in the most respectful way, but the curiosity underneath it was valid. If I am asking educators to trust me with their professional learning, their curriculum, their instructional decisions, and the mathematics they are responsible for teaching students, they have every right to wonder whether I understand the work deeply enough to support them. Can I help when the mathematics gets difficult? Can I explain why something works? Can I help them see something they cannot see yet? Can I sit down and actually do the mathematics with them?

Our students are asking us versions of those same questions, even when they never say them out loud. Can you help me when I do not understand? Can I show you how I was thinking without being embarrassed? Can I ask the question everybody else seems to know the answer to? Can I get something wrong in this classroom and still feel like I belong here? I think sometimes we become so comfortable with the mathematics ourselves that we forget how vulnerable it can feel to be the person in the room who does not understand it yet.

That is why subject matter expertise and character have to live together.

Knowing the mathematics deeply gives us the ability to respond when the work gets difficult, whether we are supporting an educator or standing in front of students. But what we know should never become a weapon we use to establish who is smartest in the room. Our expertise should create more access to the mathematics, not more distance from it.

I could have embarrassed that educator that day, because some people just need a little “razzle-dazzle” in their life. I could have repeated exactly what I heard and made sure everybody knew that I knew. Part of me probably would have felt justified doing it. Instead, I earned more credibility by solving the problem alongside them than I ever would have earned by calling them out. And when I think about our students, I wonder how many of them are deciding whether they trust us based on moments just like that. Not because they expect us to know everything, but because they are paying attention to what happens when they do not know.

That moment has stayed with me because whether we are leading adults or teaching children, our knowledge gives us a certain amount of power in the room. The question is what we choose to do with it.

The measure of our expertise cannot only be how much mathematics we know.

DOPE MATH® in Practice

Knowing the mathematics matters. But if you lead other educators, there is another layer to subject matter expertise: how you use what you know when someone else doesn't know yet. There will be moments when an educator gives an incorrect answer, misunderstands a concept, asks a question you think they should already know, or even questions your own expertise. Those moments give us an opportunity to demonstrate what we know without making someone else feel small in the process.

Put This Into Practice

1. Do the mathematics with educators. Don't always position yourself as the person at the front of the room with the answer. Sit beside people. Pick up the pencil. Work through the mathematics together. Sometimes the best way to demonstrate expertise is to let people experience how you think mathematically.

2. Ask before you correct. Before jumping in with the right answer, ask, “Show me how you were thinking.” Their response will tell you much more about what they understand, where their thinking shifted, and what support they actually need.

3. Explain the why, not just the procedure. If someone asks why something works, don't stop at the rule or algorithm. Use your content knowledge to unpack the mathematics underneath it. That's where subject matter expertise becomes useful to someone besides you.

4. Make it safe for people to expose what they don't know yet. If educators are worried about looking incompetent around you, they will learn very quickly how to hide their questions. And we cannot strengthen gaps we never get to see. The goal isn't to create a room where everyone appears knowledgeable. It's to create one where people can actually become more knowledgeable.

5. Let people experience your expertise. You don't have to constantly prove that you're the smartest person in the room. Your questions, explanations, connections, and ability to help when the mathematics gets difficult will speak for you.

Subject matter expertise gives us power in a learning space. What we do with that power matters. The goal isn't to use what you know to prove that you belong in the room. It's to use what you know to help everyone in the room become better.

Ready to Build Real Instructional Design Expertise?

If this story sounds familiar, know your voice belongs in the room. Join the DOPE MATH® Design Lab to strengthen your subject-matter expertise, deepen your standards fluency, and build the confidence to make intentional decisions about lessons, scope and sequence, and instructional pacing, rather than simply delivering pages someone else wrote.

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