Being in the middle school, I have taught US History for 12 years and while I initially was not thrilled to teach it, it has become a subject that I love. I love the discussions that my students can have because they feel that sharing an opinion is “safe”. They challenge each other, add to what someone else said and bring up good questions that make all of us think. They all want to participate and discussion tend to go longer than planned. Why can’t this be a math classroom? Why are students so afraid to do all of this in math? I see it even more now because I have the same group of students for History that I do for Geometry. In History while evaluating primary sources, they toss out questions, ideas and opinions, but in Geometry when we look at different ways to solve a problem, they take it as it is and rarely challenge. I have found they do much better in small groups, at their tables, sharing with each other. I love using cooperative grouping in my classroom, but can’t they reach a point where sharing to a large group is okay? I want them to treat math the same way…without fear of what they say, without judgment by their peers for the answer they share, because that is the math classroom I desire and they deserve. Now how can I improve on this for the future?
3/30
Algebrainiac 
I think the issue that people see is that there are hard truths in mathematics, whereas there are opinions (built on evidence) in other content areas. There are certainly different approaches – something that we value greatly as mathematics teachers – but from the students’ point of view, there’s often a focus on the answer. I think one way to close the gap is to use mathematics in modeling situations that *require* judgments and opinions.