7 ms·

There Is No Such Thing as “White” Math

66 points by temp8964 6y ago

PaulHoule 6y ago
Africans discovered Lead, Americans discovered Plutonium.
temp8964 6y ago
Also check the anti-racist math (funded by the Gates Foundation) document here: https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11... This is the most racist document I have ever read. "The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false" is on p. 65.
- veridies 6y ago
  That exact page specifies that while mathematical problems have right and wrong answers, word problems often have embedded assumptions, and that teachers should encourage students to identify those assumptions and pursue other possible answers. How is that wrong?
  - b0sk 6y ago
    It's also the "most racist document he has ever read". That's kinda fantastic in itself.
  - lurquer 6y ago
    We’ve all encountered ambiguous poorly-written word problems. That’s a problem with grammar and language; not math. The agenda behind the pamphlet is obvious. I liked this gem from the page at issue: >Schooling as we know it began during the industrial revolution, when precision and accuracy were highly valued. What are the myriad ways we can conceptualize mathematics in today’s world and beyond? These thing WERE highly valued? They are no longer? And weren’t they valued BEFORE the industrial revolution? Indeed, was not the Industrial Revolution possible in the first place due to the high value put on precision and accuracy?
    - veridies 6y ago
      It is a problem of grammar and language! As others here have said, no one is claiming that the notion of math itself is racist, but that math education can be. The 'agenda' seems to be to make sure that marginalized groups are better able to learn math. Do you disagree? As for the 'highly valued' bit; one could argue that mathematics built for problem solving creative issues (including in computer programming) is now valued more than it was then. That could lead to different curriculum than before.
      - qeternity 6y ago
        No, you're missing the point. Why is valuing "precision and accuracy" inherently supporting systems of white supremacy? You don't land a rocket on Mars by valuing anything other than precision and accuracy.
        veridies 6y ago
        It didn't say that, though. I agree it could be clearer here, but it seems to be suggesting simply that other values should also be considered when thinking about math education. It never seems to say precision or accuracy are bad or racist.
        qeternity 6y ago
        This is the thing about the hard sciences, there is nothing else that matters. You can teach these principles more effectively, but unfortunately there are right answers and there are wrong answers. The laws of the universe just don't care about anything else.
        loopz 6y ago
        You're missing the point of equity in the education system. There are different ways to teach different students effectively.
  - ed2021 6y ago
    Glad a few folks already posted this. I mean, this is just good teaching, /especially/ in a world of standardized tests. I don't think I can rephrase it better than the document already states: > And teaching math isn't just about solving specific problems. It's about helping students understand the deeper mathematical concepts so that they can apply them throughout their lives. Students can arrive at the right answer without grasping the bigger concept; or they can have an “aha” moment when they see why they got an answer wrong. Sometimes a wrong answer sheds more light than a right answer. It is hugely useful to be able to interrogate misleading paths to seemingly correct but ultimately incorrect answers. Half of standardized test answers seem to be written to intentionally capture such missteps.
- Denvercoder9 6y ago
  While that statement taken alone sounds stupid, the justification they give sounds more or less reasonable: > Of course, most math problems have correct answers, but sometimes there can be more than one way to interpret a problem, especially word problems, leading to more than one possible right answer. > And teaching math isn't just about solving specific problems. It's about helping students understand the deeper mathematical concepts so that they can apply them throughout their lives. Students can arrive at the right answer without grasping the bigger concept; or they can have an “aha” moment when they see why they got an answer wrong. Sometimes a wrong answer sheds more light than a right answer.
- ketzo 6y ago
  This document was also highlighted in the article, and to be honest, I'm having trouble identifying why anyone would call it "racist". It seems like a toolkit for identifying how seemingly innocuous ideas could support existing power structures in our society. Why should that be shunned?
  - incrudible 6y ago
    Maybe it's the equivocation of "dominance" and "whiteness" in assertions like this: "Classrooms are often microcosms of the world around us and reinforce dominant (or white) ways of being." > It seems like a toolkit for identifying how seemingly innocuous ideas could support existing power structures in our society. Why should that be shunned? It lacks intellectual rigor and is unfalsifiable, yet the burden of proof rests on the accused. Perhaps the tools we use to teach math are suboptimal, but to assert that they are "racist" or "white" (in a harmful sense) is an extraordinary claim that needs extraordinary evidence. It should be possible to experimentally demonstrate that certain teaching methods improve the outcomes towards racial equity, then give recommendations based on those results. If this isn't possible, how could we achieve racial equity by making all these assertions, then requiring teachers to reflect upon them? Clearly, if the teachers are biased by white supremacy, all of their conclusions must be biased as well.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Innocuous ideas like "the focus is on getting the right answer" being the same thing as "white supremacy"? That "white supremacy culture" can show up when "expectations are not met" or when "teachers are teachers and students are learners"? The entire pamphlet is 100% crazy. I can't imagine how anyone could read this charitably, it's quite obviously the work of people who have totally lost their minds. The entire concept of labelling ordinary aspects of any imaginable education system as "white" is fundamentally racist.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  while the framing of every single issue as "white supremacist" is kind of cartoonish, if you replace it with "methods for more inclusive teaching", nothing in that document sounds particularly crazy or even new. Disagreeable sure, but nowhere does it claim that math isn't real or that 2 + 2 isn't 4. It talks about not being either/or in regards to succeeding, not dismissing students because they don't have a good grasp of mathematical language, not being super harsh about sticking to the curriculum. This just sounds like Waldorf or Montessori school stuff.
  - jjoonathan 6y ago
    Yep, it's a Motte & Bailey. The specifics seem pretty uncontroversial and frankly a bit trite. Those are the motte. The framing is something else, though. It's so chock full of wokescold dog-whistles that I thank my lucky stars I'm not a teacher, let alone a white teacher. Yikes. It almost feels targeted: occupy the mathematicians' time with the modest specifics to divert their attention away from the, err, praxis in the framing.
    - veridies 6y ago
      I am a white teacher. It seems wholly innocuous to me, but I've only skimmed it.
      - jjoonathan 6y ago
        You aren't worried about page 6 that puts a number of innocuous points of math education philosophy and practice under the heading of "white supremacy?" Under a literal or charitable reading, it's not a problem. It's making the point that systemic racism can pop up in a number of places on a map of the educational landscape. That's fine. It's true. It's not saying that those places themselves inherently constitute white supremacy culture. However, this all hinges entirely on the reading being charitable or at the very least literal -- and if there's one life lesson that my interactions with others keep hammering home, it's that people are not generally literal or charitable. People are fuzzy association machines. Literal meanings can sometimes protect you in a court of law or court of academics. Charitability can protect you among friends. Absent those two narrow, tenuous exceptions, that paper gives wokescolds permission to label any of a dozen core aspects of teaching as "white supremacy culture," insofar as school administration allows it to do so, which by my estimation they absolutely will. I sincerely hope this fear is misplaced.
- gerash 6y ago
  "Culturally relevant curricula and practices designed to increase access for students of color". Wait what? What is "of color"? Why are there a bunch of photos of sad black kids. This was as dumb as it can get.
- jfrankamp 6y ago
  If you have a knee jerk reaction because you think math/science is pure, remember that it is always interpreted in a teaching context. Example from my life: We mentor a black girl in high school physics. The Physics teacher misinterpreted her age assuming she was a 3rd or 4th year (which is a common culturual/racial gap, not intentional but structural!) when she is a freshman. The teacher in consequence also misintepreted where she 'should' be at in her ability to manage school life, homework, comprehension etc. After he learned his mistake he reframed his perception of the students efforts at learning, and was able to teach her. She successfully passed that class trying again after narrowly failing the first time.
Coromanti 6y ago
Modernity is a curse.
bitdizzy 6y ago
I dont think it will ever be worth reading a Bari Weiss piece.
- speeder 6y ago
  The author of this piece is Sergiu Klainerman though. Bari Weiss is only hosting it.
  - ska 6y ago
    Perhaps they are suggesting this is a transitive property?
    - bitdizzy 6y ago
      Yes.
- cheweh 6y ago
  If it makes any difference, this piece led me to another one of her pieces covering an event directly involving my local community of which I was not previously aware, so I am thankful for that.
- mieses 6y ago
  She also links to a John McWhorter article. His analysis is even more brutal: https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/is-it-racist-to-expect-black-kids https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/is-it-racist-to-expect-...?
BrawnLongHaul 6y ago
This world has gone crazy. On a similar note, did anyone hear the Maoist struggle session with Brett Weinstein on Clubhouse? https://twitter.com/GraduatedBen/status/1366428185953501186 https://twitter.com/GraduatedBen/status/1366428185953501186
ketzo 6y ago
This is infuriating to read. Not a single one of the accusations in this article is about "math being racist" (or, as the title suggests, "white math"). They all question whether math instruction is racist; that seems like a question worth answering!
- stephen_greet 6y ago
  It's like they didn't even read the information they are arguing against. It just seems like the author wanted to rail against the "ideology of wokeness" as they call it without regard to the merits of this specific argument.
  - ketzo 6y ago
    This is Bari Weiss' entire playbook: construct a strawman, and yell furiously that the strawman is trying to cancel you.
  - dsr_ 6y ago
    I have just read the document Weiss[edit: Klainerman] is criticizing. I understand that she might find it infuriating, because 2/3 of it consists of repeated worksheet pages about planning, executing and critiquing improvements in math education. The other 1/3 of it, however, is largely discussion of bad math teaching, framed as racist math teaching. Most of it simply points out that bad math teaching is frequently authoritarian math teaching. I find the framing grating and the discussion of pedagogy insufficient -- I would prefer about ten times as much -- but this is a calendrical worksheet book, not a text. I suspect Weiss [edit: Klainerman] did not read the document he is criticizing, or didn't understand it.
    - ketzo 6y ago
      > bad math teaching is frequently authoritarian math teaching I think the framing you mention is part of a broader effort to understand that in the U.S., authoritarianism is, overwhelmingly, racism. If you can think of a large, structured system in the U.S., you can usually think of ways that it (for some reason...) has worse outcomes for non-white people.
uberman 6y ago
I have long held the belief that "math does not care about your identity". On the other hand, math can be applied in discriminatory ways and I think we should be careful to recognize that and listen when people assert that math can be / is racist. Perhaps what they really mean is that a particular application or instruction of math is the problem, not the math itself. I'm never going to agree that the area of a square has an "opinion" about your identity or validates my "whiteness", but I fully recognize that ML/AI results can be poisoned by "problematic" training data and that an elementary school word problem can be confusing or hurtful if tacit dominant culture knowledge is assumed.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I have long held the belief that "math does not care about your identity". Math doesn't. Teachers and systems of pedagogy[0], however, can even if the subject matter does not. [0] the former literally, and both metaphorically in the sense of “provide you different value in ways which are a function, in part, of”.
qeternity 6y ago
I see a lot of people defending all of this by saying "how is being more inclusive a bad thing". I can't speak for everyone but I don't think this is what people take issue with. It's the unsupported premises which are given as fact that frame all of these efforts. For instance, from the very first page in the Gates document listed in the comments: > White supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions. This is a very loaded intro which makes it impossible to disagree with anything that follows. It may be true, I don't know...because there was zero supporting info. All we are told is that white supremacy is everywhere and unless you abide by the author's instructions, you're a racist. It's not a great starting point to create allies.
- gherkinnn 6y ago
  It’s like arguing against the Patriot Act. You’re not a traitor, are you? Intertwine X with a perceived virtue Y. Then deflect any rebuttal of X by claiming you’re an enemy of Y.
- ska 6y ago
  > It's not a great starting point to create allies. Was that the purpose of the document?
  - qeternity 6y ago
    > Was that the purpose of that document? Or was it meant for people who all agreed (correctly or not) that this was a problem, and was exploring techniques to address that? How are you saying anything different? The premise is that teachers perpetuate systems of white supremacy implicitly in the way they teach, and, as you say, the document seeks to provide means of addressing this. These cross-cultural efforts pretty much fall under the umbrella category of "creating allies". What specifically do you take issue with? EDIT Ok OP has edited their comment. I will leave mine with the original text.
    - ska 6y ago
      Apologies, didn't see there was a reply before I trimmed mine or I would have left it. Trimmed because I thought it didn't add anything really and wasn't very articulate. Basically - not every document needs to justify its existence from first principles. "How to fix X" doesn't need to convince you that X is in fact a problem you have, if it's aimed at people who already think that.
frob 6y ago
The author sounds as if he has only read the headlines or bullet points of the report. It took me less than five minutes to find the sections on right answers and showing work. The report is nuanced about how there are right answers to almost all problems, but the focus should not just be on getting the right answer, but helping students articulate how they got there, which can be a learning experience ESPECIALLY WHEN the student got the wrong answer. Other times, it may show a different interpretation of the question to which the student got the right answer. The section on showing your work is about how students can show their process in multiple ways. It could be a discussion or a video or a drawing instead of a series of equations. This section emphasizes how students may have a different way of solving a problem than they were taught and that is ok and shouldn't be punished. In short, the few sections of the mathematics report endorsed by the Gates foundation seem to cover basic pedagogy with an eye towards diverse ways of thinking, communicating, and learning. All of this should be standard to any educator. I fail to see the fire for which the author is ringing alarm bells.
- qeternity 6y ago
  > but the focus should not just be on getting the right answer, but helping students articulate how they got there, which can be a learning experience ESPECIALLY WHEN the student got the wrong answer Who would disagree with this? This has nothing to do with race and everything to do with good teaching. And teachers who fail to do this are bad teachers, not racists. What is still perplexing to some people, is how race gets tied up into this argument. I absolutely believe that the US education system fails many, many students and that this disproportionately falls on minorities and students of color. But this almost always falls back to manifestations of larger socioeconomic structures, and not the way that material is taught. Asian students perform far better in math than white students. Do Asians thrive under systems of white supremacy more than caucasians?
  - loopz 6y ago
    We evidently need to self-flog, even when you're asian. ;)
  - mieses 6y ago
dragontamer 6y ago
I've grown up well educated in Math. In 1st and 2nd grade, my grandma would give Multiplication Quizes, my parents assigned Kumon Math (which I actually enjoyed back then), and I always got high marks in Math. Into High School, this got me the opportunity to tutor some of my friend's little brothers in math (who happened to be African American). I was confident in my math skills, and the family would pay me (hurrah, high-school $$$) so I accepted the offer. I can't say that I recall anything different going on, or any particular "racial" bits that I had to watch out for. This was just a kid who couldn't grasp Multiplication, Perimeters, and other basic Geometry and was failing at it. With a few weeks of tutoring, we got past his mental block and apparently he got an A in the class soon after I helped him. The only bit of advice I can give here is... say "I don't know" and be 100% honest with the student. "I don't know, but give me your textbook. Let me see if I can figure it out first". By showing him how I learned from the textbook, it seemed like the kid picked up and learned how to teach himself. In fact: "I don't know" was probably the most important thing I ever showed him. Too many students think that Math-wizards know everything without study. But here I am, a straight-A (in Math) student who will proudly say "I don't know" and study 1-on-1 with the kid. This knowledge didn't come for free: I got it from hard work, and if there's lack of practice over the years (a long time since I did 3rd grade or 4th grade math), I get rusty and need to re-study up to get back into the groove. I don't think he needed more than ~4 tutoring sessions from me. He really started learning on his own after that. ------------- Perhaps because this African American was literally in my same neighborhood, same high school (well, at least his older brother was), and similar academic culture. But... I didn't see much difference with that. Now I admit that one-on-one tutoring is very different than classroom-teaching. Classroom teaching is very dreadful: a "competitive Classroom" necessarily makes winners-and-losers, and the losers often feel like its hopeless to make any progress what so ever. I think that's the real issue with teaching in America: the "winners" and "losers" that is all too often in a competitive classroom environment. And in my experience, those academic losers do tend to be people of color. ---------- One-on-one instruction completely removes that competitive ladder from the situation however. But that's not really scalable in general. We have classrooms so that one teacher can teach 30 students. If we could actually afford 1-teacher per student, then it isn't a school, its a tutoring session. I dunno, that's my little bit of experience on this subject. As far as I can tell: its the middle-class / upper-class who can largely afford private tutoring sessions (removing their children from the unhelpful, "competitive" classroom environments). I may have gotten "A" in my Math subjects. But I got Cs in Chemistry and Biology, and Ds and Fs in English and History. "Competitive" classrooms are incredibly damaging to your psyche: you feel useless in a subject as others in your class pull ahead, and it becomes hopeless to catch up. That's what I learned from my own high school experience. ----------- Ironically, it felt like College was less competitive for me, and more about the joy of exploring pure academics. There was a competitive element due to grading on a curve, but I was really able to flourish in College when I stopped caring about comparing myself to others. I still got my Cs in various subjects (but never lower than that). I think I finally figured out the proper environment that worked for my psyche by then.
jaredcwhite 6y ago
> The woke ideology, on the other hand, treats both science and mathematics as social constructs Every field of human endeavor is a social construct. In the best case scenario, we are able to agree on some basic set of facts which are considered to be true regardless of the people observing them. But like the world of quantum physics, sometimes things shift in subtle ways simply because of who is observing them. No, I'm not saying 2 + 2 doesn't always equal 4. But the significance or "use case" for acquiring or utilizing that bit of knowledge is subjective, as are the methods used to convey that knowledge…which is where things get tricky.
dacode45 6y ago
I have to say I'm disappointed in this professor's misrepresentation of the Bill and Melinda Gates paper. After reading his rant about communism, I expected to go into it shaking my head at whatever nonsense white woke people are up to nowadays. What I found was a PDF that sought to aid teachers in their teaching of mathematics and encourage their students to think of math not as a boring sequence of steps but as the nuanced field it actually is. According to the article: The program argues that “white supremacy culture shows up in the classroom when the focus is on getting the ‘right’ answer” or when students are required to show their work, while stipulating that the very “concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false”. The main goal of the program is “to dismantle racism in mathematics instruction” with the expressly political aim of engaging “the sociopolitical turn in all aspects of education, including mathematics.” But the actual PDF says this. On getting the right answer: The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so. Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict. Verbal Example: Come up with at least two answers that might solve this problem. • Classroom Activity: Challenge standardized test questions by getting the “right” answer, but justify other answers by unpacking the assumptions that are made in the problem. • Classroom Activity: Deconstructed Multiple Choice - given a set of multiple choice answers, students discuss why these answers may have been included (can also be used to highlight common mistakes). • Professional Development: Study the purpose of math education, and re-envision it. Schooling as we know it began during the industrial revolution, when precision and accuracy were highly valued. What are the myriad ways we can conceptualize mathematics in today’s world and beyond? On showing your work (page 54): Math teachers ask students to show work so that teachers know what students are thinking, but that can center the teacher’s need to understand rather than student learning. Teachers should seek to understand individual student perspectives and focus on students showing their work in ways that help students learn how to process information. • Verbal Example: If you were working with a fellow mathematician who was absent this day, what might you tell them to help them learn it? • Classroom Activity: Number talks, where students have to engage with mental mathematics not limited to computations. • Professional Development: As a department, solve complex problems without writing and share with each other about that process. I look at the proposed activities and I wish my teachers had the training to implement them. As one of the poor people who made it out thanks to math, I had to watch my classmates, many of them white, fall behind and grow disinterested because math was long work books and time trials (The class would regularly race to finish a hundred inane math problems. I and another student, latino, were the only ones to bother. He stopped competing when I kept winning. This whole process was very stupid.) The PDF does not at all encourage making math easier. It would make math harder. It suggests teaching Linear Algebra (something I didn't learn until after undergrad) before precalculus and teaching about unsolvable problems (it boggles my mind how no one taught me about P vs NP problems) early. Teamwork is something I think is lacking from mathematics in general. White supremacy hurts everyone, not just the black and white kids left behind by it. It also seems to poison the minds of great people, like this professor, into thinking uncritically about ways to improve the capabilities of others. A teacher's job isn't to find good students but to make them. I hope the author takes another look.

66 points by temp8964 6y ago

Africans discovered Lead, Americans discovered Plutonium.

Also check the anti-racist math (funded by the Gates Foundation) document here: https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11... This is the most racist document I have ever read. "The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false" is on p. 65.

veridies 6y ago
That exact page specifies that while mathematical problems have right and wrong answers, word problems often have embedded assumptions, and that teachers should encourage students to identify those assumptions and pursue other possible answers. How is that wrong?
- b0sk 6y ago
  It's also the "most racist document he has ever read". That's kinda fantastic in itself.
- lurquer 6y ago
  We’ve all encountered ambiguous poorly-written word problems. That’s a problem with grammar and language; not math. The agenda behind the pamphlet is obvious. I liked this gem from the page at issue: >Schooling as we know it began during the industrial revolution, when precision and accuracy were highly valued. What are the myriad ways we can conceptualize mathematics in today’s world and beyond? These thing WERE highly valued? They are no longer? And weren’t they valued BEFORE the industrial revolution? Indeed, was not the Industrial Revolution possible in the first place due to the high value put on precision and accuracy?
  - veridies 6y ago
    It is a problem of grammar and language! As others here have said, no one is claiming that the notion of math itself is racist, but that math education can be. The 'agenda' seems to be to make sure that marginalized groups are better able to learn math. Do you disagree? As for the 'highly valued' bit; one could argue that mathematics built for problem solving creative issues (including in computer programming) is now valued more than it was then. That could lead to different curriculum than before.
    - qeternity 6y ago
      No, you're missing the point. Why is valuing "precision and accuracy" inherently supporting systems of white supremacy? You don't land a rocket on Mars by valuing anything other than precision and accuracy.
      - veridies 6y ago
        It didn't say that, though. I agree it could be clearer here, but it seems to be suggesting simply that other values should also be considered when thinking about math education. It never seems to say precision or accuracy are bad or racist.
        qeternity 6y ago
        This is the thing about the hard sciences, there is nothing else that matters. You can teach these principles more effectively, but unfortunately there are right answers and there are wrong answers. The laws of the universe just don't care about anything else.
        loopz 6y ago
        You're missing the point of equity in the education system. There are different ways to teach different students effectively.
- ed2021 6y ago
  Glad a few folks already posted this. I mean, this is just good teaching, /especially/ in a world of standardized tests. I don't think I can rephrase it better than the document already states: > And teaching math isn't just about solving specific problems. It's about helping students understand the deeper mathematical concepts so that they can apply them throughout their lives. Students can arrive at the right answer without grasping the bigger concept; or they can have an “aha” moment when they see why they got an answer wrong. Sometimes a wrong answer sheds more light than a right answer. It is hugely useful to be able to interrogate misleading paths to seemingly correct but ultimately incorrect answers. Half of standardized test answers seem to be written to intentionally capture such missteps.
Denvercoder9 6y ago
While that statement taken alone sounds stupid, the justification they give sounds more or less reasonable: > Of course, most math problems have correct answers, but sometimes there can be more than one way to interpret a problem, especially word problems, leading to more than one possible right answer. > And teaching math isn't just about solving specific problems. It's about helping students understand the deeper mathematical concepts so that they can apply them throughout their lives. Students can arrive at the right answer without grasping the bigger concept; or they can have an “aha” moment when they see why they got an answer wrong. Sometimes a wrong answer sheds more light than a right answer.
ketzo 6y ago
This document was also highlighted in the article, and to be honest, I'm having trouble identifying why anyone would call it "racist". It seems like a toolkit for identifying how seemingly innocuous ideas could support existing power structures in our society. Why should that be shunned?
- incrudible 6y ago
  Maybe it's the equivocation of "dominance" and "whiteness" in assertions like this: "Classrooms are often microcosms of the world around us and reinforce dominant (or white) ways of being." > It seems like a toolkit for identifying how seemingly innocuous ideas could support existing power structures in our society. Why should that be shunned? It lacks intellectual rigor and is unfalsifiable, yet the burden of proof rests on the accused. Perhaps the tools we use to teach math are suboptimal, but to assert that they are "racist" or "white" (in a harmful sense) is an extraordinary claim that needs extraordinary evidence. It should be possible to experimentally demonstrate that certain teaching methods improve the outcomes towards racial equity, then give recommendations based on those results. If this isn't possible, how could we achieve racial equity by making all these assertions, then requiring teachers to reflect upon them? Clearly, if the teachers are biased by white supremacy, all of their conclusions must be biased as well.
- thu2111 6y ago
  Innocuous ideas like "the focus is on getting the right answer" being the same thing as "white supremacy"? That "white supremacy culture" can show up when "expectations are not met" or when "teachers are teachers and students are learners"? The entire pamphlet is 100% crazy. I can't imagine how anyone could read this charitably, it's quite obviously the work of people who have totally lost their minds. The entire concept of labelling ordinary aspects of any imaginable education system as "white" is fundamentally racist.
Barrin92 6y ago
while the framing of every single issue as "white supremacist" is kind of cartoonish, if you replace it with "methods for more inclusive teaching", nothing in that document sounds particularly crazy or even new. Disagreeable sure, but nowhere does it claim that math isn't real or that 2 + 2 isn't 4. It talks about not being either/or in regards to succeeding, not dismissing students because they don't have a good grasp of mathematical language, not being super harsh about sticking to the curriculum. This just sounds like Waldorf or Montessori school stuff.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  Yep, it's a Motte & Bailey. The specifics seem pretty uncontroversial and frankly a bit trite. Those are the motte. The framing is something else, though. It's so chock full of wokescold dog-whistles that I thank my lucky stars I'm not a teacher, let alone a white teacher. Yikes. It almost feels targeted: occupy the mathematicians' time with the modest specifics to divert their attention away from the, err, praxis in the framing.
  - veridies 6y ago
    I am a white teacher. It seems wholly innocuous to me, but I've only skimmed it.
    - jjoonathan 6y ago
      You aren't worried about page 6 that puts a number of innocuous points of math education philosophy and practice under the heading of "white supremacy?" Under a literal or charitable reading, it's not a problem. It's making the point that systemic racism can pop up in a number of places on a map of the educational landscape. That's fine. It's true. It's not saying that those places themselves inherently constitute white supremacy culture. However, this all hinges entirely on the reading being charitable or at the very least literal -- and if there's one life lesson that my interactions with others keep hammering home, it's that people are not generally literal or charitable. People are fuzzy association machines. Literal meanings can sometimes protect you in a court of law or court of academics. Charitability can protect you among friends. Absent those two narrow, tenuous exceptions, that paper gives wokescolds permission to label any of a dozen core aspects of teaching as "white supremacy culture," insofar as school administration allows it to do so, which by my estimation they absolutely will. I sincerely hope this fear is misplaced.
gerash 6y ago
"Culturally relevant curricula and practices designed to increase access for students of color". Wait what? What is "of color"? Why are there a bunch of photos of sad black kids. This was as dumb as it can get.
jfrankamp 6y ago
If you have a knee jerk reaction because you think math/science is pure, remember that it is always interpreted in a teaching context. Example from my life: We mentor a black girl in high school physics. The Physics teacher misinterpreted her age assuming she was a 3rd or 4th year (which is a common culturual/racial gap, not intentional but structural!) when she is a freshman. The teacher in consequence also misintepreted where she 'should' be at in her ability to manage school life, homework, comprehension etc. After he learned his mistake he reframed his perception of the students efforts at learning, and was able to teach her. She successfully passed that class trying again after narrowly failing the first time.

Coromanti 6y ago

Modernity is a curse.

bitdizzy 6y ago

I dont think it will ever be worth reading a Bari Weiss piece.

speeder 6y ago
The author of this piece is Sergiu Klainerman though. Bari Weiss is only hosting it.
- ska 6y ago
  Perhaps they are suggesting this is a transitive property?
  - bitdizzy 6y ago
    Yes.
cheweh 6y ago
If it makes any difference, this piece led me to another one of her pieces covering an event directly involving my local community of which I was not previously aware, so I am thankful for that.
mieses 6y ago
She also links to a John McWhorter article. His analysis is even more brutal: https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/is-it-racist-to-expect-black-kids https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/is-it-racist-to-expect-...?

BrawnLongHaul 6y ago

This world has gone crazy. On a similar note, did anyone hear the Maoist struggle session with Brett Weinstein on Clubhouse? https://twitter.com/GraduatedBen/status/1366428185953501186 https://twitter.com/GraduatedBen/status/1366428185953501186

ketzo 6y ago

This is infuriating to read. Not a single one of the accusations in this article is about "math being racist" (or, as the title suggests, "white math"). They all question whether math instruction is racist; that seems like a question worth answering!

stephen_greet 6y ago
It's like they didn't even read the information they are arguing against. It just seems like the author wanted to rail against the "ideology of wokeness" as they call it without regard to the merits of this specific argument.
- ketzo 6y ago
  This is Bari Weiss' entire playbook: construct a strawman, and yell furiously that the strawman is trying to cancel you.
- dsr_ 6y ago
  I have just read the document Weiss[edit: Klainerman] is criticizing. I understand that she might find it infuriating, because 2/3 of it consists of repeated worksheet pages about planning, executing and critiquing improvements in math education. The other 1/3 of it, however, is largely discussion of bad math teaching, framed as racist math teaching. Most of it simply points out that bad math teaching is frequently authoritarian math teaching. I find the framing grating and the discussion of pedagogy insufficient -- I would prefer about ten times as much -- but this is a calendrical worksheet book, not a text. I suspect Weiss [edit: Klainerman] did not read the document he is criticizing, or didn't understand it.
  - ketzo 6y ago
    > bad math teaching is frequently authoritarian math teaching I think the framing you mention is part of a broader effort to understand that in the U.S., authoritarianism is, overwhelmingly, racism. If you can think of a large, structured system in the U.S., you can usually think of ways that it (for some reason...) has worse outcomes for non-white people.

uberman 6y ago

I have long held the belief that "math does not care about your identity". On the other hand, math can be applied in discriminatory ways and I think we should be careful to recognize that and listen when people assert that math can be / is racist. Perhaps what they really mean is that a particular application or instruction of math is the problem, not the math itself. I'm never going to agree that the area of a square has an "opinion" about your identity or validates my "whiteness", but I fully recognize that ML/AI results can be poisoned by "problematic" training data and that an elementary school word problem can be confusing or hurtful if tacit dominant culture knowledge is assumed.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> I have long held the belief that "math does not care about your identity". Math doesn't. Teachers and systems of pedagogy[0], however, can even if the subject matter does not. [0] the former literally, and both metaphorically in the sense of “provide you different value in ways which are a function, in part, of”.

qeternity 6y ago

I see a lot of people defending all of this by saying "how is being more inclusive a bad thing". I can't speak for everyone but I don't think this is what people take issue with. It's the unsupported premises which are given as fact that frame all of these efforts. For instance, from the very first page in the Gates document listed in the comments: > White supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions. This is a very loaded intro which makes it impossible to disagree with anything that follows. It may be true, I don't know...because there was zero supporting info. All we are told is that white supremacy is everywhere and unless you abide by the author's instructions, you're a racist. It's not a great starting point to create allies.

gherkinnn 6y ago
It’s like arguing against the Patriot Act. You’re not a traitor, are you? Intertwine X with a perceived virtue Y. Then deflect any rebuttal of X by claiming you’re an enemy of Y.
ska 6y ago
> It's not a great starting point to create allies. Was that the purpose of the document?
- qeternity 6y ago
  > Was that the purpose of that document? Or was it meant for people who all agreed (correctly or not) that this was a problem, and was exploring techniques to address that? How are you saying anything different? The premise is that teachers perpetuate systems of white supremacy implicitly in the way they teach, and, as you say, the document seeks to provide means of addressing this. These cross-cultural efforts pretty much fall under the umbrella category of "creating allies". What specifically do you take issue with? EDIT Ok OP has edited their comment. I will leave mine with the original text.
  - ska 6y ago
    Apologies, didn't see there was a reply before I trimmed mine or I would have left it. Trimmed because I thought it didn't add anything really and wasn't very articulate. Basically - not every document needs to justify its existence from first principles. "How to fix X" doesn't need to convince you that X is in fact a problem you have, if it's aimed at people who already think that.

frob 6y ago

The author sounds as if he has only read the headlines or bullet points of the report. It took me less than five minutes to find the sections on right answers and showing work. The report is nuanced about how there are right answers to almost all problems, but the focus should not just be on getting the right answer, but helping students articulate how they got there, which can be a learning experience ESPECIALLY WHEN the student got the wrong answer. Other times, it may show a different interpretation of the question to which the student got the right answer. The section on showing your work is about how students can show their process in multiple ways. It could be a discussion or a video or a drawing instead of a series of equations. This section emphasizes how students may have a different way of solving a problem than they were taught and that is ok and shouldn't be punished. In short, the few sections of the mathematics report endorsed by the Gates foundation seem to cover basic pedagogy with an eye towards diverse ways of thinking, communicating, and learning. All of this should be standard to any educator. I fail to see the fire for which the author is ringing alarm bells.

qeternity 6y ago
> but the focus should not just be on getting the right answer, but helping students articulate how they got there, which can be a learning experience ESPECIALLY WHEN the student got the wrong answer Who would disagree with this? This has nothing to do with race and everything to do with good teaching. And teachers who fail to do this are bad teachers, not racists. What is still perplexing to some people, is how race gets tied up into this argument. I absolutely believe that the US education system fails many, many students and that this disproportionately falls on minorities and students of color. But this almost always falls back to manifestations of larger socioeconomic structures, and not the way that material is taught. Asian students perform far better in math than white students. Do Asians thrive under systems of white supremacy more than caucasians?
- loopz 6y ago
  We evidently need to self-flog, even when you're asian. ;)
- mieses 6y ago

dragontamer 6y ago

I've grown up well educated in Math. In 1st and 2nd grade, my grandma would give Multiplication Quizes, my parents assigned Kumon Math (which I actually enjoyed back then), and I always got high marks in Math. Into High School, this got me the opportunity to tutor some of my friend's little brothers in math (who happened to be African American). I was confident in my math skills, and the family would pay me (hurrah, high-school $$$) so I accepted the offer. I can't say that I recall anything different going on, or any particular "racial" bits that I had to watch out for. This was just a kid who couldn't grasp Multiplication, Perimeters, and other basic Geometry and was failing at it. With a few weeks of tutoring, we got past his mental block and apparently he got an A in the class soon after I helped him. The only bit of advice I can give here is... say "I don't know" and be 100% honest with the student. "I don't know, but give me your textbook. Let me see if I can figure it out first". By showing him how I learned from the textbook, it seemed like the kid picked up and learned how to teach himself. In fact: "I don't know" was probably the most important thing I ever showed him. Too many students think that Math-wizards know everything without study. But here I am, a straight-A (in Math) student who will proudly say "I don't know" and study 1-on-1 with the kid. This knowledge didn't come for free: I got it from hard work, and if there's lack of practice over the years (a long time since I did 3rd grade or 4th grade math), I get rusty and need to re-study up to get back into the groove. I don't think he needed more than ~4 tutoring sessions from me. He really started learning on his own after that. ------------- Perhaps because this African American was literally in my same neighborhood, same high school (well, at least his older brother was), and similar academic culture. But... I didn't see much difference with that. Now I admit that one-on-one tutoring is very different than classroom-teaching. Classroom teaching is very dreadful: a "competitive Classroom" necessarily makes winners-and-losers, and the losers often feel like its hopeless to make any progress what so ever. I think that's the real issue with teaching in America: the "winners" and "losers" that is all too often in a competitive classroom environment. And in my experience, those academic losers do tend to be people of color. ---------- One-on-one instruction completely removes that competitive ladder from the situation however. But that's not really scalable in general. We have classrooms so that one teacher can teach 30 students. If we could actually afford 1-teacher per student, then it isn't a school, its a tutoring session. I dunno, that's my little bit of experience on this subject. As far as I can tell: its the middle-class / upper-class who can largely afford private tutoring sessions (removing their children from the unhelpful, "competitive" classroom environments). I may have gotten "A" in my Math subjects. But I got Cs in Chemistry and Biology, and Ds and Fs in English and History. "Competitive" classrooms are incredibly damaging to your psyche: you feel useless in a subject as others in your class pull ahead, and it becomes hopeless to catch up. That's what I learned from my own high school experience. ----------- Ironically, it felt like College was less competitive for me, and more about the joy of exploring pure academics. There was a competitive element due to grading on a curve, but I was really able to flourish in College when I stopped caring about comparing myself to others. I still got my Cs in various subjects (but never lower than that). I think I finally figured out the proper environment that worked for my psyche by then.

jaredcwhite 6y ago

> The woke ideology, on the other hand, treats both science and mathematics as social constructs Every field of human endeavor is a social construct. In the best case scenario, we are able to agree on some basic set of facts which are considered to be true regardless of the people observing them. But like the world of quantum physics, sometimes things shift in subtle ways simply because of who is observing them. No, I'm not saying 2 + 2 doesn't always equal 4. But the significance or "use case" for acquiring or utilizing that bit of knowledge is subjective, as are the methods used to convey that knowledge…which is where things get tricky.

dacode45 6y ago

I have to say I'm disappointed in this professor's misrepresentation of the Bill and Melinda Gates paper. After reading his rant about communism, I expected to go into it shaking my head at whatever nonsense white woke people are up to nowadays. What I found was a PDF that sought to aid teachers in their teaching of mathematics and encourage their students to think of math not as a boring sequence of steps but as the nuanced field it actually is. According to the article: The program argues that “white supremacy culture shows up in the classroom when the focus is on getting the ‘right’ answer” or when students are required to show their work, while stipulating that the very “concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false”. The main goal of the program is “to dismantle racism in mathematics instruction” with the expressly political aim of engaging “the sociopolitical turn in all aspects of education, including mathematics.” But the actual PDF says this. On getting the right answer: The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so. Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict. Verbal Example: Come up with at least two answers that might solve this problem. • Classroom Activity: Challenge standardized test questions by getting the “right” answer, but justify other answers by unpacking the assumptions that are made in the problem. • Classroom Activity: Deconstructed Multiple Choice - given a set of multiple choice answers, students discuss why these answers may have been included (can also be used to highlight common mistakes). • Professional Development: Study the purpose of math education, and re-envision it. Schooling as we know it began during the industrial revolution, when precision and accuracy were highly valued. What are the myriad ways we can conceptualize mathematics in today’s world and beyond? On showing your work (page 54): Math teachers ask students to show work so that teachers know what students are thinking, but that can center the teacher’s need to understand rather than student learning. Teachers should seek to understand individual student perspectives and focus on students showing their work in ways that help students learn how to process information. • Verbal Example: If you were working with a fellow mathematician who was absent this day, what might you tell them to help them learn it? • Classroom Activity: Number talks, where students have to engage with mental mathematics not limited to computations. • Professional Development: As a department, solve complex problems without writing and share with each other about that process. I look at the proposed activities and I wish my teachers had the training to implement them. As one of the poor people who made it out thanks to math, I had to watch my classmates, many of them white, fall behind and grow disinterested because math was long work books and time trials (The class would regularly race to finish a hundred inane math problems. I and another student, latino, were the only ones to bother. He stopped competing when I kept winning. This whole process was very stupid.) The PDF does not at all encourage making math easier. It would make math harder. It suggests teaching Linear Algebra (something I didn't learn until after undergrad) before precalculus and teaching about unsolvable problems (it boggles my mind how no one taught me about P vs NP problems) early. Teamwork is something I think is lacking from mathematics in general. White supremacy hurts everyone, not just the black and white kids left behind by it. It also seems to poison the minds of great people, like this professor, into thinking uncritically about ways to improve the capabilities of others. A teacher's job isn't to find good students but to make them. I hope the author takes another look.