The White Supremacy of Arithmetic

 

From a recent FoxNews story: “The Oregon Department of Education recently encouraged teachers to register for training that encourages ‘ethnomathematics’ and argues, among other things, that White supremacy manifests itself in the focus on finding the right answer.”

Now, as a conservative, I don’t pretend to understand this. But to my untrained ear, it certainly sounds like leftist teachers think that being white is equivalent to being correct. Although perhaps I misunderstand, because again, to a conservative this makes no sense.

Part of the “Equitable Math” toolkit explains that, “the belief that there is such a thing as being objective or ‘neutral’” is a characteristic of White supremacy.  It expands on this point, “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.” And it instructs teachers to “identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.”

Remember, this is middle school math. How are you supposed to teach math to 13-year-olds without perpetuating objectivity? How does long division uphold racist views? How is finding the right answer related to white supremacy? I’m fairly certain that this is not satire. I think they’re serious. And these people teach our children.

This isn’t even sociology, which is essentially the study of the absurd. No. This is middle school math.

When my dad went to college in the ’60s, he said a lot of his professors and coaches were WWII veterans who went to graduate school on the GI bill after the war. They were not flower children, as you might imagine.

When I was in grade school in the ’70s, some of my teachers were men who stayed in college and got their teaching certificate, then agreed to teach in underserved areas like mine to avoid the Vietnam draft. They were a bit different than the hard-boiled typed my Dad described. This, I think, is when it really started.

Since then, our educational system has moved gradually but steadily left. Each little step seemed relatively unimportant, and anyone who argued was understandably criticized for making a big deal out of nothing.

And eventually, 50 years later, here we are. Training middle school math teachers on the white supremacy of arithmetic.

How do we get back to reality? So many little things have changed. So many little things. I’m not sure how to fix all this.

But I’m sure of this: Our public schools cannot be fixed. They’re too far gone. We need to start over.

The teachers’ unions, the Democratic Party, the media, and many other powerful organizations will make this a difficult and messy process. But it must be done. And the longer we wait, the more difficult and messy it will be.

Meanwhile, our 13-year-olds are learning about the white supremacy of arithmetic.

We need to get started.

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  1. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    Percival (View Comment):

    Jules PA (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    This is quite depressing.

    Well, I’m depressed Aisians were at 52%. I expected a better result.

     

    So did their moms.

    Touche!

    Maybe a lot of Asian kids skipped school on the NAEP day?

    What a waste of time. 

    I saw the list of NAEP testers one year from our school. 

    I knew then, just from the names, we were cooked. 

    I would not believe it was a random sample unless I observed the creation of the list. 

    • #61
  2. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    CACrabtree (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    If this doesn’t scare parents into pulling their kids out of public schools, nothing will.

    It might scare some parents; those who care. As for the rest, it’s tough to scare a larda&& sitting on a couch and watching soap operas all day long.

    I have a number of teachers in my family (public schools) and they tell me that for every parent/teacher conference they know exactly who will be there; the parents of the “A” and “B” students. The parents of the rest of the kids simply don’t give a flip.

    Makes me wonder if the C and below students have busy parents, or just parents who don’t think their kids can improve. 

    Maybe – and this is doubtless treacherous territory – their kids are not going to improve regardless. 

    • #62
  3. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    Percival (View Comment):

    Jules PA (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    This is quite depressing.

    Well, I’m depressed Aisians were at 52%. I expected a better result.

     

    So did their moms.

    I’ve known one “Tiger Mom”. They are to be taken seriously. 

    • #63
  4. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    TBA (View Comment):

    CACrabtree (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    If this doesn’t scare parents into pulling their kids out of public schools, nothing will.

    It might scare some parents; those who care. As for the rest, it’s tough to scare a larda&& sitting on a couch and watching soap operas all day long.

    I have a number of teachers in my family (public schools) and they tell me that for every parent/teacher conference they know exactly who will be there; the parents of the “A” and “B” students. The parents of the rest of the kids simply don’t give a flip.

    Makes me wonder if the C and below students have busy parents, or just parents who don’t think their kids can improve.

    Maybe – and this is doubtless treacherous territory – their kids are not going to improve regardless.

    So much of success in school is creating habits and discipline that clear your path, so you can pursue what you love, and endure what you don’t enjoy. There are no shortcuts, and it isn’t always a party.

    Students who earn poor grades may have any number of challenges, only one of which may be their parents. A parent might be unhealthy, a weak example, abusive, downtrodden, or distracted.

    Part of being a teacher is trying to discern why kids are not successful, and help them see paths beyond challenges. It is also helping students explore the strengths they have, and add to their strengths so they have choices in the future.

    Those items are not on a report card, but may be the most important foundational components of school, especially for K-6 students.

    Funny how part of being a teacher isn’t that different from being a parent.

    • #64
  5. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Let’s cancel all H1B visas entirely. Make the Microsoft’s and Googles hire only American workers with their American schooling. See how long it takes them to figure out what the problem is and how to solve it. 

    • #65
  6. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    Let’s cancel all H1B visas entirely. Make the Microsoft’s and Googles hire only American workers with their American schooling. See how long it takes them to figure out what the problem is and how to solve it.

    We’d crash too hard, too soon. The edifice of stupidity that is the American public school system wasn’t built overnight. It will take a while to replace.

    • #66
  7. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Very old news- google “mathematically correct” for the 1st iteration of this

    http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com

    Back in the 90s a group in California rose to fight “rainforest algebra”. Their story is very instructive. An algebra text they cited was over 800 pages with no algebra in it for the 1st 100 plus pages(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addison-Wesley_Secondary_Math:_An_Integrated_Approach:_Focus_on_Algebra)

    it got so bad that when California was rewriting their math standards a group of (IIRC) Cal Tech, Stanford and Jet Propulsion Lab PhDs offered to write them free of charge but were rejected in favor of an Ed school- b/c the politically motivated board doubted the expertise of the JPL staff- which included Nobel laureates in math and Chemistry!

    for more read Math Wars:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20111123232100/http://www.csun.edu/%7evcmth00m/bshm.html

    My kids started grammar school in California.  When my son entered 1st grade in 1991 they had just transitioned to a new method of teaching reading that ignored phonics.  Fortunately, his teacher was a year from retirement and she told us she was going to teach her class phonics and ignore the mandated curriculum.  We reinforced that at home and were able to insure he was good at reading.

    • #67
  8. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat, I graduated from high school in 1963. I was kind of surprised at how many of my fellow (male) graduates were going to schools of education. They hadn’t shown any particular affinity for the subject, and mostly were not terribly good students.

    Then I found out that being a teacher was a guaranteed draft dodge.

    Then I noticed that (in my home state) the cadre of draft dodgers became the cadre of organizing teachers unions.

    Now that state is going broke paying the retirement benefits of that cadre.

    A clean sweep.

    Right here is where we lost the Culture War.

    Many of my teachers had been WW2 veterans.

    How much better off would be as a nation if we had prioritized teaching jobs for Veterans instead of Draft Dodgers?

    • #68
  9. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Jules PA (View Comment):

    Vance Richards (View Comment):
    Watched Hidden Figures with my daughter last week. A story about Black women who cared very much about getting the right answer.

    I know, right answer.

    Ask a nurse giving meds about math and getting the right answer.

    You can’t miss a decimal point in a calculation without wreaking havoc or death!

    Yup.  As a resident one of my colleagues ordered 0.5mg of digoxin for a patient.

    He walked by the nursing station and noticed 10 little vials of digoxin on the counter.

    Raced to the patients room just in time to stop the nurse giving 5 mg of digoxin.

    Apparently she not only was bad at math, she must have been asleep when they explained why meds come in certain sized containers and to question any order that required an unusual number of them….

    • #69
  10. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Percival (View Comment):
    Yeah, but they are going to take a lot of little kids with them.

    The dumber the kids the more malleable they will be to the Lefts propaganda.

    Thats a feature, not a bug.

    • #70
  11. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Dr. Bastiat: Although perhaps I misunderstand, because again, to a conservative this makes no sense.

    We must never forget the left’s motto:

    “No idea is too crazy to implement.”

    • #71
  12. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Kozak (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):
    Yeah, but they are going to take a lot of little kids with them.

    The dumber the kids the more malleable they will be to the Lefts propaganda.

    Thats a feature, not a bug.

    We don’t want dumb. Dumb is bad.

    • #72
  13. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Wait! This may actually be a brilliant strategy to keep non-whites incapable of dealing with reality, and thus easy to subjugate and oppress. So maybe teaching non-white kids that “right” answers in math is white supremacy is a program by people who want to implement white supremacy. [The Asians present a problem for those seeking to implement white supremacy though, as Asians seem to be better at white supremacy behavior than are whites.]

    • #73
  14. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    TreeRat (View Comment):

    Goldgeller (View Comment):
    The solutions are objectively correct. What I think they mean is teachers should not penalize students who leave square term in when you can take another step and remove it

    This would mean the teacher would have to understand that. You might think that a math teacher would know how to do math. This turns out not always to be the case. When my son first encountered algebra in middle school, he came to me with a homework problem marked incorrect. He didn’t understand what he did wrong. Turns out he didn’t do anything wrong; the answer in the back of the book was incorrect. (I wonder if math textbook publishers deliberately put randomly selected incorrect answers in their books for copyright protection purposes the way encyclopedia publishers included false articles to prove copy violations by competitors.)

    I met with his teacher (later) to discuss it. She didn’t understand that the book answers could be wrong and couldn’t work the problem to get the book answer either. In fact, she did not understand how to factor an equation. It turns out she had never taught algebra before; she may have never taken algebra in college. She was trying to stay ahead of the class using an instruction guide, saying the “right” things and giving assignments and grading homework and tests per the official answers.

    I made it a teaching moment for my son on how to coexist with teachers who don’t know their subjects. Knowing that what teachers claim is not necessarily true is a valuable lesson.

    What I learned (or had reaffirmed) is that Schools of Education do not teach that a Teacher needs to understand their subject. Instruction skills obviate the need.

    Mr. Jundanian, my brilliant high school math teacher in the early 1970s used the incorrect answers in the back of the book (it was the first edition of a new textbook with lots of incorrect answers) as his own teaching tool. He immediately recognized that there were many incorrect answers in the back of the book, and so invited any of us students who thought the book’s answer was wrong to explain to the class why it was wrong, showing our work on the blackboard. Then the class would discuss. Sometimes Mr. Jundanian would jump in to ask pertinent questions, or if our discussion was going off track. We students became extra diligent in doing the homework and in making sure we understood the material, because finding and proving one of these book answer errors was good for some prestige standing among our peers. 

    • #74
  15. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Percival (View Comment):

    Kozak (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):
    Yeah, but they are going to take a lot of little kids with them.

    The dumber the kids the more malleable they will be to the Lefts propaganda.

    Thats a feature, not a bug.

    We don’t want dumb. Dumb is bad.

    We don’t. They do.

    • #75
  16. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Kozak (View Comment):

    As a resident one of my colleagues ordered 0.5mg of digoxin for a patient.

    He walked by the nursing station and noticed 10 little vials of digoxin on the counter.

    Raced to the patients room just in time to stop the nurse giving 5 mg of digoxin.

    Apparently she not only was bad at math, she must have been asleep when they explained why meds come in certain sized containers and to question any order that required an unusual number of them….

    We had a patient death in a hospital I was working at when a nurse gave a patient 50mg of a drug instead of what the doctor ordered – 15mg.

    The doctor in question was Egyptian, with a thick accent.  And apparently in Egyptian culture, it is based on a strict hierarchy, and women (especially subordinate women like nurses) are not to question men in authority.  Or maybe that’s his Muslim culture rather than Egyptian – I don’t really know.  But he did not like being questioned by women.  I heard him scream at a nurse once for questioning him about something.

    Anyway, they asked me if I heard the doctor give the verbal order.  I said I was on the floor that night, but I didn’t hear what he said.  But it wouldn’t matter if I did, because I often couldn’t understand him.

    Note that I had a good professional relationship with this guy, but I did have trouble understanding him, and his culture was clearly very different than mine when it came to women.

    They dropped the investigation, to avoid the appearance of criticizing Muslims.  I couldn’t blame them.  This was soon after the 911 terrorist attacks, and things were politically hot.  They were stuck.  When I left the hospital for another job a year later, he was still on staff there.  I hope he was writing more of his orders rather than using verbals, but of course I don’t know.  The nurse left for another job.  And I couldn’t blame her.

    Crummy case.

    • #76
  17. Peter Gøthgen Member
    Peter Gøthgen
    @PeterGothgen

    While I have many problems with my particular union, this is one of the reasons why I would never teach in a large district like mine without one.  My seniority, as well as the protection of the union, allows me the freedom to teach mathematics to my students properly, while ignoring the nonsense.  The relatively paltry sum I pay in dues each year (deducted from taxes as a work expense) is more than paid for in the freedom and protection it affords me.

    • #77
  18. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Kozak (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Kozak (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):
    Yeah, but they are going to take a lot of little kids with them.

    The dumber the kids the more malleable they will be to the Lefts propaganda.

    Thats a feature, not a bug.

    We don’t want dumb. Dumb is bad.

    We don’t. They do.

    Who’s going to build the airplanes they take to Reykjavik to pick up their awards for fighting climate change? Who’s going to maintain the radars those planes need to fly?

    • #78
  19. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Peter Gøthgen (View Comment):

    While I have many problems with my particular union, this is one of the reasons why I would never teach in a large district like mine without one. My seniority, as well as the protection of the union, allows me the freedom to teach mathematics to my students properly, while ignoring the nonsense. The relatively paltry sum I pay in dues each year (deducted from taxes as a work expense) is more than paid for in the freedom and protection it affords me.

    If you’re going to have big, centralized school systems that treat teachers as employees rather than professionals, teachers will probably need some sort of protective organization.  

    • #79
  20. Django Member
    Django
    @Django

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    Let’s cancel all H1B visas entirely. Make the Microsoft’s and Googles hire only American workers with their American schooling. See how long it takes them to figure out what the problem is and how to solve it.

    My limited experience in trying to staff a small research project gave me some sympathy for those who want H1B visas increased. 

    • #80
  21. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    Peter Gøthgen (View Comment):

    While I have many problems with my particular union, this is one of the reasons why I would never teach in a large district like mine without one. My seniority, as well as the protection of the union, allows me the freedom to teach mathematics to my students properly, while ignoring the nonsense. The relatively paltry sum I pay in dues each year (deducted from taxes as a work expense) is more than paid for in the freedom and protection it affords me.

    I don’t know where you teach and which union represents you, NEA or AFT.  In Seattle I was a member of the NEA associated Seattle Teachers Association. I paid $900/annum in dues, not a paltry sum. Negotiated contracts were handed to teachers as a block to be voted on up or down without any opportunity to vote on individual provisions. The union and district were pretty much in agreement on just about every issue, save salaries. They were pretty much indistinguishable when it came to leftist doctrines which, to a large extent, generated out of the School of Education at the University of Washington.

    I had a couple of occasions where I had to rely on the union to insure my rights under the contract. One in which an administrator tried to stop me from taking a position for which I was well qualified but white. He wanted a Black teacher in that position even though there were none with my qualifications and seniority. A second involved a situation of a parent claiming that my aide’s boyfriend had molested her daughter, a charge that was eventually proven to be totally unfounded, but one in which it was nice to have the union’s attorney available for consultation. 

    For the rest, I had serious problems with the union failing in its requirement to segregate the dues of teachers who did not want their dues to be used for political purposes, mostly leftwing, like anti-2nd Amendment advertising. I had a problem, in general, with their using a large portion of the dues to support Democrat politicians in state and local elections. However, I do not believe that we would have achieved the salaries we did without some form of collective bargaining. When I started teaching in 1969 in New York City my starting salary for $4500/annum. After a strike during which I reported for work everyday, that figure was increased to $6500. Preparation periods and other negotiated improvements would likely not have happened without an organized union. However, like all such situations, as the balance of power shifted from the bosses to the workers, abuses of power simply shifted as well. Unions hold far too much power, and unions of government workers are inherently dangerous.

    • #81
  22. Chuck Coolidge
    Chuck
    @Chuckles

    TBA (View Comment):

    CACrabtree (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    If this doesn’t scare parents into pulling their kids out of public schools, nothing will.

    It might scare some parents; those who care. As for the rest, it’s tough to scare a larda&& sitting on a couch and watching soap operas all day long.

    I have a number of teachers in my family (public schools) and they tell me that for every parent/teacher conference they know exactly who will be there; the parents of the “A” and “B” students. The parents of the rest of the kids simply don’t give a flip.

    Makes me wonder if the C and below students have busy parents, or just parents who don’t think their kids can improve.

    Maybe – and this is doubtless treacherous territory – their kids are not going to improve regardless.

    Cause or effect?  If I an active in PTA, if I am at all the parent/teacher conferences, will cause my children get good grades? Or might they get good grades at least partly because I’m the type of parent that engages? And that expects his children to perform?

    • #82
  23. Chuck Coolidge
    Chuck
    @Chuckles

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    Let’s cancel all H1B visas entirely. Make the Microsoft’s and Googles hire only American workers with their American schooling. See how long it takes them to figure out what the problem is and how to solve it.

    You can’t do that!  Haven’t you heard that the economy’s global?

    • #83
  24. Chuck Coolidge
    Chuck
    @Chuckles

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Kozak (View Comment):

    As a resident one of my colleagues ordered 0.5mg of digoxin for a patient.

    He walked by the nursing station and noticed 10 little vials of digoxin on the counter.

    Raced to the patients room just in time to stop the nurse giving 5 mg of digoxin.

    Apparently she not only was bad at math, she must have been asleep when they explained why meds come in certain sized containers and to question any order that required an unusual number of them….

    We had a patient death in a hospital I was working at when a nurse gave a patient 50mg of a drug instead of what the doctor ordered – 15mg.

    The doctor in question was Egyptian, with a thick accent. And apparently in Egyptian culture, it is based on a strict hierarchy, and women (especially subordinate women like nurses) are not to question men in authority. Or maybe that’s his Muslim culture rather than Egyptian – I don’t really know. But he did not like being questioned by women. I heard him scream at a nurse once for questioning him about something.

    Anyway, they asked me if I heard the doctor give the verbal order. I said I was on the floor that night, but I didn’t hear what he said. But it wouldn’t matter if I did, because I often couldn’t understand him.

    Note that I had a good professional relationship with this guy, but I did have trouble understanding him, and his culture was clearly very different than mine when it came to women.

    They dropped the investigation, to avoid the appearance of criticizing Muslims. I couldn’t blame them. This was soon after the 911 terrorist attacks, and things were politically hot. They were stuck. When I left the hospital for another job a year later, he was still on staff there. I hope he was writing more of his orders rather than using verbals, but of course I don’t know. The nurse left for another job. And I couldn’t blame her.

    Crummy case.

    I’m imagining how I’d feel if I were the nurse.

    • #84
  25. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    The teachers want a way to avoid being held responsible for failing to teach kids what they need to know. That’s all this is. It’s a line of bovine excrement that gets them (at the children’s long term expense) off the hook for not effectively doing what we pay them to do.

    • #85
  26. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Percival (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Goldgeller (View Comment):
    strip away the overwrought and silly political dialogue and some of the ideas would probably be helpful to the students.

    I agree. If the writers of ethnomathmatics work books just said they were trying to improve math education, fine. But when they suggest changes in the math curriculum to address white supremacy and imperialism, then I don’t really care what else they have to say.

    But then you couldn’t call it ethnomathematics and you lose your sales hook. You aren’t trying to sell this to Euclid or Euler. Your targets are woke educators who had to cram for remedial math.

    You bring up a serious point. Are they really they really low I.Q. people are are they high I.Q. people whose genetic gifts have been perverted by the foolishness of man. 

    • #86
  27. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Goldgeller (View Comment):
    strip away the overwrought and silly political dialogue and some of the ideas would probably be helpful to the students.

    I agree. If the writers of ethnomathmatics work books just said they were trying to improve math education, fine. But when they suggest changes in the math curriculum to address white supremacy and imperialism, then I don’t really care what else they have to say.

    I disagree, quite strongly.

    The idea that we’re going to teach minority kids mathematics by teaching them not to focus on getting the right answer is just absurd.

    I don’t think that this is about teaching. I think that it is about invalidating the field of mathematics, because certain minority groups perform so poorly in the field.

    The Equalitarian hypothesis is that everyone has the same abilities. This is false. The Ethnic Equalitarian hypothesis is that even if individuals differ, every racial or ethnic group has the same abilities. This, too, is false.

    You can see the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress here. These are the figures for the percent of 12th grade students who are proficient in math, by racial or ethnic group, in 2019 (the last reported year):

    • Asian 52%
    • White 32%
    • Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander 16%
    • Hispanic 11%
    • American Indian/Alaska Native 9%
    • Black 8%

    Here’s how Wokeism works. The subject of mathematics is White Supremacist because whites do better than blacks.

    But don’t worry! We’ll just do away with the idea that there’s a right answer, and everyone will be equal!

    This is quite depressing.

    Eventually math will be Asian supremacist. 

    • #87
  28. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Django (View Comment):

    These people are too brain-dead to realize they are doing seriously what Alan Sokal did as parody years ago.

    There are many natural scientists, and especially physicists, who continue to reject the notion that the disciplines concerned with social and cultural criticism can have anything to contribute, except perhaps peripherally, to their research. Still less are they receptive to the idea that the very foundations of their worldview must be revised or rebuilt in the light of such criticism. Rather, they cling to the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook, which can be summarized briefly as follows: that there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in “eternal” physical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these laws by hewing to the “objective” procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method.

    full text: https://physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html

    Also spooky: the left going after the hard sciences and how math is taught sort of  reminds you of what Alexander Solzhenitsyn described in the Gulag Archipelago about Stalin going after the engineers. The point is to eliminate any field into which people can still go to make a living while either being honest publicly about their opinions or being silent on that subject. The point is to make the people who disagree with this participate in public in what they think (know) is a lie in order to keep their jobs.

    • #88
  29. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Goldgeller (View Comment):
    strip away the overwrought and silly political dialogue and some of the ideas would probably be helpful to the students.

    I agree. If the writers of ethnomathmatics work books just said they were trying to improve math education, fine. But when they suggest changes in the math curriculum to address white supremacy and imperialism, then I don’t really care what else they have to say.

    I disagree, quite strongly.

    The idea that we’re going to teach minority kids mathematics by teaching them not to focus on getting the right answer is just absurd.

    I don’t think that this is about teaching. I think that it is about invalidating the field of mathematics, because certain minority groups perform so poorly in the field.

    The Equalitarian hypothesis is that everyone has the same abilities. This is false. The Ethnic Equalitarian hypothesis is that even if individuals differ, every racial or ethnic group has the same abilities. This, too, is false.

    You can see the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress here. These are the figures for the percent of 12th grade students who are proficient in math, by racial or ethnic group, in 2019 (the last reported year):

    • Asian 52%
    • White 32%
    • Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander 16%
    • Hispanic 11%
    • American Indian/Alaska Native 9%
    • Black 8%

    Here’s how Wokeism works. The subject of mathematics is White Supremacist because whites do better than blacks.

    But don’t worry! We’ll just do away with the idea that there’s a right answer, and everyone will be equal!

    This is quite depressing.

    Eventually math will be Asian supremacist. 

    • #89
  30. SParker Member
    SParker
    @SParker

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Goldgeller (View Comment):
    strip away the overwrought and silly political dialogue and some of the ideas would probably be helpful to the students.

    I agree. If the writers of ethnomathmatics work books just said they were trying to improve math education, fine. But when they suggest changes in the math curriculum to address white supremacy and imperialism, then I don’t really care what else they have to say.

    True.  But.  It’s just got to be amusing.  I can sort of see a prohibition against appropriating the concept of zero and using Arabic numerals, and the proposed replacements will be interesting to ponder.  Beyond that, I’m just looking forward with anticipatory delight to see how you purge something completely abstract of anything.

    • #90
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