077 | Integrity Over Fidelity: Let’s stop pretending there is only one way to get there with Cheryl Fricchione | September 23, 2026

<p>Cheryl Fricchione, past president of the Association of Mathematics Teachers of New Jersey, joins Pam to talk about what actually changes math teaching. Standards as a North Star, listening to what kids really say, and why a correct answer can hide broken reasoning.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Full episode description:</strong></p><p>Cheryl Fricchione is a K-12 math consultant, a former middle school teacher and elementary math coach, past president of the Association of Mathematics Teachers of New Jersey, and the founder of Coaching That Counts.</p><p>Her math story starts in Jersey City, with a dad who was so good with numbers he hand calculated her high school GPA on a memo pad to check the computer&#39;s work, and a game they played on the bus that she always got wrong the same way. It moves through a high school teacher who told her that if her method was mathematically sound and she could justify it, she never had to fit in a box. And it turns at the moment she was teaching middle school, color coding everything, telling clever stories about twins, and quietly realizing none of it was doing the work she thought it was.</p><p>In this conversation, Cheryl and Pam get into the practical heart of math professional learning. Why standards function as a North Star and what goes sideways when we teach without them. Why Cheryl runs a base five place value activity with adults, because a first grade teacher cannot feel in base ten what a six year old feels. How the choice between Unifix cubes and base ten blocks quietly determines whether a second grader is ready to regroup. Why she calls on the students who did not raise their hands, and how she knows who to call on.</p><p>They also talk about brave spaces instead of safe ones, the difference between integrity and fidelity in curriculum, the gaps in elementary teacher preparation, and what gives Cheryl hope right now in math education.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Key takeaways:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Standards work as a North Star. Without them, we spend time on the wrong things or teach strategies that do not belong at that grade level.</p></li><li><p>Integrity over fidelity: know the standard, the learning goal, and the big idea, then make choices based on the students in front of you.</p></li><li><p>A correct answer can sit on top of incorrect reasoning, and we usually only find out later when the answer finally breaks.</p></li><li><p>Every manipulative reveals something and hides something. Unifix cubes sup