In many countries, in contemporary math curricula, particularly in early childhood and childhood classrooms, it is considered crucial to encourage children to show their work, to concretely represent their thinking. This article takes up an historiography of this trend (from an American perspective), and draws on case studies of elementary classrooms to show that sometimes, encouraging children to represent their thought betrays sensible epistemological and psychological understandings of the nature of thought and knowledge. The author draws on psychoanalytic theory in conversation with educational philosopher Gert Biesta to argue for a rehumanizing pedagogy, one that enables teachers to see children and themselves as whole and complex even in the context of a mandated and predetermined curriculum. Though the article focuses on math classrooms, its implications for childhood education are broader and trans-curricular.