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This is fascinating and I appreciate you linking it. I was mind-blown when I read page 8's claim that white supremacy manifests itself in mathematics education

This is fascinating and I appreciate you linking it. I was mind-blown when I read page 8's claim that white supremacy manifests itself in mathematics education when "students are required to show their work in standardized, prescribed ways".

dharmab 5y ago
For the curious: > The child of immigrants might have learned a different way to solve a problem because that’s how their parents were taught where they grew up. If we just tell that student their way is the wrong way, we risk turning them off to math for life. If we take the opportunity to explore why there are different ways to approach the same problem, it can be a learning moment for the entire class. I certainly had this experience in school! I did many math problems mentally, using the method taught in schools today where a problem like 23 x 7 is split into ((10 * 7) * 2) + (3 * 7). As a result, showing my work was challenging, because the teachers of my time wanted us to write out the long multiplication and I didn't know writing the above expansion was an option.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Part of schooling is learning and showing you can follow a specific set of instructions. As long as one was taught how to do long multiplication, I do not see the purpose of taking into account what every kids' parents taught them if the purpose of the exercise is to learn a certain method and then show that you learned that certain method by doing it.
  - TheGigaChad 5y ago
    Idiot.
  - dharmab 5y ago
    Because in practice, that causes students to disengage from the learning process: > If we just tell that student their way is the wrong way, we risk turning them off to math for life. I certainly disengaged from some subjects in school due to frustration with "thou shalt" methods of teaching. I was even removed from an upper level English language class because I didn't draw the same conclusions as the teacher from the material.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      I agree if they told you >23 x 7 is split into ((10 * 7) * 2) + (3 * 7) was the wrong way, then that is harmful. But if the purpose of the test was to see if you can do long multiplication, and you were not able to do it because you did not want to or like to do it that way, then that is a personal problem. The reality is that school (non university level schooling) is not purely about education or exploring the 18 million different ways something can be right or wrong. It is also an exercise in navigating one's way around other humans and their expectations and playing the game that you will have to for the rest of your life. There is also the constraint of limited budgets and schools having to make do with perhaps not the most qualified educators. And there is certainly lots of improvement to be made, but this "racist math" stuff seems to be counter productive.
      - primitivesuave 5y ago
        Additionally, mathematics uses standard notation and uniform rigorous standards for what is/isn't true. There is certainly some utility in teaching mental arithmetic skills, but the higher-level concepts are only accessible if one can formulate ideas in accordance with the rest of the body of research.
- waterhouse 5y ago
  Ah, yes. I was told to "show my work", but I didn't have any work to show. If they told me "For sake of illustration, show what the steps would be if you carried out the following algorithm", then perhaps I could have done that. But what they said was "show your work", and there was nothing to show. Luckily, I had learned several years of the curriculum in advance anyway, and had contempt for what the teachers were doing, so it didn't change my opinion of math, only my opinion of school.

dharmab 5y ago

For the curious: > The child of immigrants might have learned a different way to solve a problem because that’s how their parents were taught where they grew up. If we just tell that student their way is the wrong way, we risk turning them off to math for life. If we take the opportunity to explore why there are different ways to approach the same problem, it can be a learning moment for the entire class. I certainly had this experience in school! I did many math problems mentally, using the method taught in schools today where a problem like 23 x 7 is split into ((10 * 7) * 2) + (3 * 7). As a result, showing my work was challenging, because the teachers of my time wanted us to write out the long multiplication and I didn't know writing the above expansion was an option.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
Part of schooling is learning and showing you can follow a specific set of instructions. As long as one was taught how to do long multiplication, I do not see the purpose of taking into account what every kids' parents taught them if the purpose of the exercise is to learn a certain method and then show that you learned that certain method by doing it.
- TheGigaChad 5y ago
  Idiot.
- dharmab 5y ago
  Because in practice, that causes students to disengage from the learning process: > If we just tell that student their way is the wrong way, we risk turning them off to math for life. I certainly disengaged from some subjects in school due to frustration with "thou shalt" methods of teaching. I was even removed from an upper level English language class because I didn't draw the same conclusions as the teacher from the material.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I agree if they told you >23 x 7 is split into ((10 * 7) * 2) + (3 * 7) was the wrong way, then that is harmful. But if the purpose of the test was to see if you can do long multiplication, and you were not able to do it because you did not want to or like to do it that way, then that is a personal problem. The reality is that school (non university level schooling) is not purely about education or exploring the 18 million different ways something can be right or wrong. It is also an exercise in navigating one's way around other humans and their expectations and playing the game that you will have to for the rest of your life. There is also the constraint of limited budgets and schools having to make do with perhaps not the most qualified educators. And there is certainly lots of improvement to be made, but this "racist math" stuff seems to be counter productive.
    - primitivesuave 5y ago
      Additionally, mathematics uses standard notation and uniform rigorous standards for what is/isn't true. There is certainly some utility in teaching mental arithmetic skills, but the higher-level concepts are only accessible if one can formulate ideas in accordance with the rest of the body of research.
waterhouse 5y ago
Ah, yes. I was told to "show my work", but I didn't have any work to show. If they told me "For sake of illustration, show what the steps would be if you carried out the following algorithm", then perhaps I could have done that. But what they said was "show your work", and there was nothing to show. Luckily, I had learned several years of the curriculum in advance anyway, and had contempt for what the teachers were doing, so it didn't change my opinion of math, only my opinion of school.