4 ms·

https://equitablemath.org/ https://equitablemath.org/

rickspencer3 5y ago
This content looks like it is meant to help people learn how to teach math to blacks and latinos effectively, not an alternative math.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  … and Multilinguals as well. So Canadians will no doubt benefit from this too? At some point - once an adult - you have to call bollocks when you see it. Signed, A person who can speak five languages.
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    I just took a skim through the material. The only objectionable thing was couching it in heavily racial or equitable terms, but the bulk of the work is really just trying to look for opportunities to improve pedagogy. The content itself is pretty vanilla and is discussing methods of pedagogy that are pretty old (at first glance it does not seem meaningfully different from the Montessori method and other approaches like “couching math in everyday examples” is an old idea).
    - StanislavPetrov 5y ago
      The difference is in the results. At the end of the day, children taught by the Montessori method were proficient in reading, writing and math. Today proficiency levels are plunging at the same time that the focus on "education" is being shifted heavily towards "diversity and equity".
- spangry 5y ago
  https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11... "This tool provides teachers an opportunity to examine their actions, beliefs, and values around teaching mathematics. The framework for deconstructing racism in mathematics offers essential characteristics of antiracist math educators and critical approaches to dismantling white supremacy in math classrooms by making visible the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture (Jones and Okun 2001; dismantling Racism 2016) with respect to math. Building on the framework, teachers engage with critical praxis in order to shift their instructional beliefs and practices towards antiracist math education. By centering antiracism, we model how to be antiracist math educators with accountability."
  - 4512124672456 5y ago
    That still has nothing to do with alternative math, but teaching.
    - Viliam1234 5y ago
      It has nothing to do with math, full stop. Yet, math teachers are required to waste their time learning it.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - fn-mote 5y ago
        One could consider it a waste of time if it were demonstrated not to be effective improving the outcomes of learing math. Math teachers need to know (1) math; and (2) how to teach it. The argumet is that this falls into the second category. I am not claiming to have read any evidence that it is effective, or even that there is any. I do think this shallow dismissal is improper.
        Viliam1234 5y ago
        So the burden of proof is on those who doubt that indoctrinating math teachers with critical race theory improves the teaching of math? That sounds a bit unfair, especially considering that anyone who would seriously try to provide such evidence would probably commit a career suicide, by being called a racist and cancelled.
- kaitai 5y ago
  I've seen a number of attacks on sites like Equitable Math. The criticisms I've seen seem to fall into several categories (this may not be exhaustive): * "Math should always have one answer and this idea that there could be different ways of doing things is evil and will corrupt our youth. Objective = one answer." Ugh. As a mathematician this is the one I hate the most. This is what led Pythagoreans to campaign against irrational numbers, some Catholics to campaign against imaginary numbers, some folks to react against distributions/generalized derivatives/generalized functions in analysis. The whole point of math, the whole creativity and beauty and opportunity for innovation, is to see how you can break the rules!! Hyperbolic and spherical geometry are not tools of the DeViL!!! Nor are they woke. David Brooks, get a frikkin education [1]. * "You shouldn't talk about race in math because math is objective." Math is a human activity, humans are embedded in society. Brown vs Board was decided within my parents' lifetime. Racial segregation was the official policy of many educational institutions for most of US history and students will come with different educational histories. When you're teaching, you want to connect with students and you want to trace the intellectual history of the topic. It is more intellectually honest to acknowledge the unfairness of history than pretend it doesn't exist, and for students to understand the intertwined evolution of mathematics and technology they must understand historical context as well. When you're trying to motivate kids, especially, role models and stories from history and today can be useful, which is why ET Bell published Men of Mathematics [2] which inspired folks like Freeman Dyson, and we today include Power in Numbers by Talithia Williams, Mathematically Gifted and Black at https://mathematicallygiftedandblack.com/ https://mathematicallygiftedandblack.com/, Lathisms at https://www.lathisms.org/ https://www.lathisms.org/, Mathematicians of the African Diaspora at https://www.mathad.com/home https://www.mathad.com/home, and more. There's not much point in dwelling on race/gender/sexuality, but intentional censorship (pretending Alan Turing wasn't gay, pretending Elbert Frank Cox had equal employment opportunities) is deeply dishonest. * "Math should not be a tool for social justice." Um, what should it be? As I wrote in my other comment on this thread, everything is a tool. Math is a tool for justice, for oppression, for carpentry, for art, for software design, for computer games, for gerrymandering and anti-gerrymandering. As a mathematician I just want everyone to have access to this tool, rather than only some people! The idea that education can help people and society better them/itselves is not new. Check out the work of Bob Moses during the Civil Rights Movement [3]. It's a good read as everyone in America agrees the Civil Rights Movement was Good but many of those people believe "wokeness" is Bad -- because the concept of wokeness is also a tool used for many purposes. The argument is just over how people get to use this tool and who gets to use it. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/opinion/this-is-how-wokeness-ends.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/opinion/this-is-how-woken... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_of_Mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_of_Mathematics [3] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/206027/radical-equations-by-robert-p-moses/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/206027/radical-equa...
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Which part of their FAQ intro do you disagree with? > For decades, America’s schools have tried and failed to close gaps on math test scores between White students and students of color. That’s not because math discriminates by race, and it’s not because some groups of students are inherently more suited to math. It’s because we give students of color and students from lower-income families the least access to critical resources, from the most qualified teachers to the best technology to the most advanced courses. And it’s because instructional materials and practices—even good ones—are influenced by culture and perspective. > When we think narrowly about teaching math, we create barriers for students; we allow them to fall into the trap of thinking they’re “not a math person.” But the truth is we can all be “math people.” The goal of “A Pathway to Equitable Mathematics Instruction” is to engage as many students as possible in not just solving math problems but understanding math concepts so they can apply them across a wide range of real-world applications. Math problems, of course, have correct answers. But students can arrive at the right answer without understanding the bigger concept or they can have an “aha” moment when they see why they got an answer wrong. > The toolkit was written by educators, and it doesn’t tell teachers how to do their job—it asks them to think about how they do it. For example, when we ask students to show their work, we should think about how and why. The point should be to have a dialogue about their process and their learning, not require every student to follow the exact same path to the right answer. A 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
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Don't be fooled, this faux-"equitable" stuff is not new. It's been tried for literally decades. And much like other "Woke" ideas like the whole Latinx stuff, it's ridiculously condescending towards the very people it supposedly ought to help.

This content looks like it is meant to help people learn how to teach math to blacks and latinos effectively, not an alternative math.

throwaway210222 5y ago
… and Multilinguals as well. So Canadians will no doubt benefit from this too? At some point - once an adult - you have to call bollocks when you see it. Signed, A person who can speak five languages.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  I just took a skim through the material. The only objectionable thing was couching it in heavily racial or equitable terms, but the bulk of the work is really just trying to look for opportunities to improve pedagogy. The content itself is pretty vanilla and is discussing methods of pedagogy that are pretty old (at first glance it does not seem meaningfully different from the Montessori method and other approaches like “couching math in everyday examples” is an old idea).
  - StanislavPetrov 5y ago
    The difference is in the results. At the end of the day, children taught by the Montessori method were proficient in reading, writing and math. Today proficiency levels are plunging at the same time that the focus on "education" is being shifted heavily towards "diversity and equity".
spangry 5y ago
https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11... "This tool provides teachers an opportunity to examine their actions, beliefs, and values around teaching mathematics. The framework for deconstructing racism in mathematics offers essential characteristics of antiracist math educators and critical approaches to dismantling white supremacy in math classrooms by making visible the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture (Jones and Okun 2001; dismantling Racism 2016) with respect to math. Building on the framework, teachers engage with critical praxis in order to shift their instructional beliefs and practices towards antiracist math education. By centering antiracism, we model how to be antiracist math educators with accountability."
- 4512124672456 5y ago
  That still has nothing to do with alternative math, but teaching.
  - Viliam1234 5y ago
    It has nothing to do with math, full stop. Yet, math teachers are required to waste their time learning it.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - fn-mote 5y ago
      One could consider it a waste of time if it were demonstrated not to be effective improving the outcomes of learing math. Math teachers need to know (1) math; and (2) how to teach it. The argumet is that this falls into the second category. I am not claiming to have read any evidence that it is effective, or even that there is any. I do think this shallow dismissal is improper.
      - Viliam1234 5y ago
        So the burden of proof is on those who doubt that indoctrinating math teachers with critical race theory improves the teaching of math? That sounds a bit unfair, especially considering that anyone who would seriously try to provide such evidence would probably commit a career suicide, by being called a racist and cancelled.
kaitai 5y ago
I've seen a number of attacks on sites like Equitable Math. The criticisms I've seen seem to fall into several categories (this may not be exhaustive): * "Math should always have one answer and this idea that there could be different ways of doing things is evil and will corrupt our youth. Objective = one answer." Ugh. As a mathematician this is the one I hate the most. This is what led Pythagoreans to campaign against irrational numbers, some Catholics to campaign against imaginary numbers, some folks to react against distributions/generalized derivatives/generalized functions in analysis. The whole point of math, the whole creativity and beauty and opportunity for innovation, is to see how you can break the rules!! Hyperbolic and spherical geometry are not tools of the DeViL!!! Nor are they woke. David Brooks, get a frikkin education [1]. * "You shouldn't talk about race in math because math is objective." Math is a human activity, humans are embedded in society. Brown vs Board was decided within my parents' lifetime. Racial segregation was the official policy of many educational institutions for most of US history and students will come with different educational histories. When you're teaching, you want to connect with students and you want to trace the intellectual history of the topic. It is more intellectually honest to acknowledge the unfairness of history than pretend it doesn't exist, and for students to understand the intertwined evolution of mathematics and technology they must understand historical context as well. When you're trying to motivate kids, especially, role models and stories from history and today can be useful, which is why ET Bell published Men of Mathematics [2] which inspired folks like Freeman Dyson, and we today include Power in Numbers by Talithia Williams, Mathematically Gifted and Black at https://mathematicallygiftedandblack.com/ https://mathematicallygiftedandblack.com/, Lathisms at https://www.lathisms.org/ https://www.lathisms.org/, Mathematicians of the African Diaspora at https://www.mathad.com/home https://www.mathad.com/home, and more. There's not much point in dwelling on race/gender/sexuality, but intentional censorship (pretending Alan Turing wasn't gay, pretending Elbert Frank Cox had equal employment opportunities) is deeply dishonest. * "Math should not be a tool for social justice." Um, what should it be? As I wrote in my other comment on this thread, everything is a tool. Math is a tool for justice, for oppression, for carpentry, for art, for software design, for computer games, for gerrymandering and anti-gerrymandering. As a mathematician I just want everyone to have access to this tool, rather than only some people! The idea that education can help people and society better them/itselves is not new. Check out the work of Bob Moses during the Civil Rights Movement [3]. It's a good read as everyone in America agrees the Civil Rights Movement was Good but many of those people believe "wokeness" is Bad -- because the concept of wokeness is also a tool used for many purposes. The argument is just over how people get to use this tool and who gets to use it. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/opinion/this-is-how-wokeness-ends.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/opinion/this-is-how-woken... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_of_Mathematics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_of_Mathematics [3] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/206027/radical-equations-by-robert-p-moses/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/206027/radical-equa...

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

Which part of their FAQ intro do you disagree with? > For decades, America’s schools have tried and failed to close gaps on math test scores between White students and students of color. That’s not because math discriminates by race, and it’s not because some groups of students are inherently more suited to math. It’s because we give students of color and students from lower-income families the least access to critical resources, from the most qualified teachers to the best technology to the most advanced courses. And it’s because instructional materials and practices—even good ones—are influenced by culture and perspective. > When we think narrowly about teaching math, we create barriers for students; we allow them to fall into the trap of thinking they’re “not a math person.” But the truth is we can all be “math people.” The goal of “A Pathway to Equitable Mathematics Instruction” is to engage as many students as possible in not just solving math problems but understanding math concepts so they can apply them across a wide range of real-world applications. Math problems, of course, have correct answers. But students can arrive at the right answer without understanding the bigger concept or they can have an “aha” moment when they see why they got an answer wrong. > The toolkit was written by educators, and it doesn’t tell teachers how to do their job—it asks them to think about how they do it. For example, when we ask students to show their work, we should think about how and why. The point should be to have a dialogue about their process and their learning, not require every student to follow the exact same path to the right answer. A 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

zozbot234 5y ago
Don't be fooled, this faux-"equitable" stuff is not new. It's been tried for literally decades. And much like other "Woke" ideas like the whole Latinx stuff, it's ridiculously condescending towards the very people it supposedly ought to help.