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TODOS Podcast · TODOS Mathematics for ALL

S4E15: Susie Håkansson

·1 hr 5 min·4 clips
Susie says she selected at least one teacher of color every year and later received the Susie Hokanson Award.
The podcast opens with a guest who is treated less like a guest and more like a mentor whose guidance shaped the hosts' careers. Susie Håkansson is introduced through gratitude and memory. The conversation quickly centers California's subject matter projects and the math project tradition, with the math project framed as support for the realities of classrooms and for teachers working with multilingual students and other diverse learners. That frame places equity at the center of teacher learning, including an emphasis on affirming strengths, values, languages, and cultures. One of the early details is the use of a dyad as a structured way for each person to have a voice. The show pauses on how that practice differs from simply calling it a turn and talk. That small choice captures a larger ethic of careful participation. The discussion also keeps the social side of professional work in view. A mentor's quiet invitation is treated as a serious act. The hosts talk about how being asked can make people step up. Susie is then asked to reflect on what she is proud of from her years in leadership. The conversation turns to her time as executive director of the California Mathematics Council. She recalls arriving in 1999 during the middle of the math wars in California. The hosts slow down to clarify the landscape for listeners. They distinguish the CBES as an end-of-year test for kids. They also separate the California Math Project from the UCLA Math Project while showing how the two connect, with one statewide and the other site-based at UCLA and supporting Los Angeles. The episode keeps returning to the pressure around the math wars and the fear that the California Mathematics Project might be pushed out. That history gives weight to Susie's leadership. The closing stretch turns from institutional memory to reflection on the season itself. The hosts speak about how much they have learned from the people they have met. They connect that learning to Asian American math identity as an organizing thread. The episode ends on summer greetings and an easy sense of shared continuation.

As heard by us

A clear account of math education history shaped by mentorship, equity, and classroom practice.

This conversation with Susie Hakansson gives a clear look at how educational change moves through mentors, invitations, and the slow work of building structures that let more students speak.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a mentor-led conversation about California math equity and the people shaping it.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
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