Is two plus two five? It could be…unless you’re racist.
That idea is being bandied about, amid a social justice analysis of mathematics.
Oddly, such a campaign is being supported by none other than Bill Gates.
As reported by Campus Reform, the Gates Foundation has contributed $1 million to local governments and major universities in order inject “antiracism” into math.
The effort is called “A Pathway to Equitable Instruction.”
From the official website:
A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction is an integrated approach to mathematics that centers Black, Latinx, and Multilingual students in grades 6-8, addresses barriers to math equity, and aligns instruction to grade-level priority standards. The Pathway offers guidance and resources for educators to use now as they plan their curriculum, while also offering opportunities for ongoing self-reflection as they seek to develop an anti-racist math practice. The toolkit “strides” serve as multiple on-ramps for educators as they navigate the individual and collective journey from equity to antiracism.
If you’re unaware, per CNN, antiracism razes the following “microaggressions“:
“Don’t blame me. I never owned slaves.”
“All lives matter.”
“We’re all one human race/big happy family.”
“I’m colorblind; I don’t care if you’re white, black, yellow, green or purple.”
Those used to be un-racist, but they’re the opposite of anti-racist.
UCLA Law Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw offers more:
“Antiracism is the active dismantling of systems, privileges, and everyday practices that reinforce and normalize the contemporary dimensions of white dominance. This, of course, also involves a critical understanding of the history of whiteness in America.”
How do you do that with math?
A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction thinks it knows.
“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,” it explains.
The guide insists teachers should “not require every student to follow the exact same path to the right answer.”
Here’s why:
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.
Should there even be a right answer?
White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when…
There is a greater focus on getting the “right” answer than understanding concepts and reasoning.
Indeed:
Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict. Some math problems may have more than one right answer and some may not have a solution at all… [W]hen the focus is only on getting the right answer, the complexity of the mathematical concepts and reasoning may be underdeveloped, missing opportunities for deep learning.
Errors should still count:
[M]ost 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.
Of course, that used to be called “the wrong answer.”
At least they’re encouraging creative learning:
Center Ethnomathematics
Recognize the ways that communities of color engage in mathematics and problem solving in their everyday lives.
Identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.
Back to Bill Gates, it’s an interesting idea: A man who built his fortune in the mathematically objective world of software development is funding a paradigm which will result, presumably, in fewer people being able to do the same.
Or perhaps I’m wrong.
Then again, “wrong” may no longer be a thing.
Story cited here.
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