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The Newest Math...

Graham2001

Graduate Poster
Graham2001
Joined
Aug 19, 2006
Messages
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The 18th Century view on Africans and Maths...


"...in reason [blacks are] much inferior to [whites], as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid.”
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Thomas Jefferson



The 21st Century view on Africans and Maths...



"1. a focus on getting the “right” answer is “perfectionism” or “either/or thinking;”2. the idea that teachers are teachers and students are learners is wrong;
3. to think of it as a problem that the expectations you have of students are not met is racist;
4. to teach math in a linear fashion with skills taught in sequence is racist;
5. to value “procedural fluency” – i.e. knowing how to do the fractions, long division … -- over “conceptual knowledge” is racist. That is, black kids are brilliant to know what math is trying to do, to know “what it’s all about,” rather than to actually do the math, just as many of us read about what physics or astrophysics accomplishes without ever intending to master the math that led to the conclusions;
6. to require students to “show their work” is racist;
7. requiring students to raise their hand before speaking “can reinforce paternalism and powerhoarding, in addition to breaking the process of thinking, learning, and communicating.”
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(e.g. A much more elaborate way of saying the thing that Jefferson said in the 18th Century...)



From the 1st 'stride' of 'A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction."


A link to the document in question is here...


https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf


And critical commentary by an African-American writer is linked below...


https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/is-it-racist-to-expect-black-kids
 
Graham2001 said:
The 18th Century view on Africans and Maths...





Thomas Jefferson



The 21st Century view on Africans and Maths...






(e.g. A much more elaborate way of saying the thing that Jefferson said in the 18th Century...)



From the 1st 'stride' of 'A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction."


A link to the document in question is here...


https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf


And critical commentary by an African-American writer is linked below...


https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/is-it-racist-to-expect-black-kids
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Your quotation is from the critical commentary. Is this the 21st century view of maths as propounded by the equitable math organisation, or the commentator's own critical view of the gist of the pathway document?
 
Graham2001 said:
The 18th Century view on Africans and Maths...





Thomas Jefferson



The 21st Century view on Africans and Maths...






(e.g. A much more elaborate way of saying the thing that Jefferson said in the 18th Century...)



From the 1st 'stride' of 'A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction."


A link to the document in question is here...


https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf


And critical commentary by an African-American writer is linked below...


https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/is-it-racist-to-expect-black-kids
Click to expand...

Yeah, so stupid, they designed the computer programmes for NASA.

Wielding little more than a pencil, a slide rule and one of the finest mathematical minds in the country, Mrs. Johnson, who died at 101 on Monday at a retirement home in Newport News, Va., calculated the precise trajectories that would let Apollo 11 land on the moon in 1969 and, after Neil Armstrong’s history-making moonwalk, let it return to Earth.

A single error, she well knew, could have dire consequences for craft and crew. Her impeccable calculations had already helped plot the successful flight of Alan B. Shepard Jr., who became the first American in space when his Mercury spacecraft went aloft in 1961.
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NY Times

Why even start on a false premise in the first place? It does not strengthen your claim.
 
What exactly does "7. requiring students to raise their hand before speaking" have to do with math skills?
 
Vixen said:
...Or because they live in an unequal society called America.
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Racism exists, certainly, and blacks are disproportionately impacted, and we should take steps to try to reduce real racism. But 2+2=4 is not racist and claims that it is are transparently ridiculous. Not teaching black kids to learn math is putting them at a huge disadvantage in life.

But perhaps you disagree and feel the hard math should be reserved for whites and Asians?
 
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Brainster said:
Racism exists, certainly, and blacks are disproportionately impacted, and we should take steps to try to reduce real racism. But 2+2=4 is not racist and claims that it is are transparently ridiculous. Not teaching black kids to learn math is putting them at a huge disadvantage in life.

But perhaps you disagree and feel the hard math should be reserved for whites and Asians?
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Don't be silly. Academia has always been a class/cultural thing, nothing at all to do with race.

The worst qualifications in the UK are working class boys.
 
Lplus said:
Is this the 21st century view of maths as propounded by the equitable math organisation, or the commentator's own critical view of the gist of the pathway document?
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Probably both. It is based on a brain child of William Spady called "Method Learning" which seems to be based on the concept that if you can get a student to think critically then they will automatically learn all of the necessary skills without being needed to be taught anything.

Although Method Learning proved to be a spectacular failure compared to other methods of teaching, politicians and bureaucrats became enamoured by the idea and forced schools to adopt it. It subsequently became to be called "Outcomes Based Education" and although public outrage forced many governments to scale back on this plan, I understand that it is still practised religiously in places like California.
 
This is a discussion video on the 'Anti-Racist Math' booklet, one of the speakers is John McWhorter and the other is Glen Loury. The first is the man who wrote the critique I linked to in the OP, they point out just how racist the proposals actually are. This quote from Erich Von Daniken's 'Signs of the Gods' is as good (and sadly ironic) a summary of what the 'Woke' believe 'Black Culture' to be:


“Nearly all negroes are musical: they have rhythm in their blood.”
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Erich Von Daniken (From Jason Colavito's blog.)
Link: http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-astonishing-racial-claims-of-erich-von-daniken


And here is the full 'In Defence of Knowledge."



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbJWi6KkcHs
 
Graham2001 said:
This is a discussion video on the 'Anti-Racist Math' booklet, one of the speakers is John McWhorter and the other is Glen Loury. The first is the man who wrote the critique I linked to in the OP, they point out just how racist the proposals actually are. This quote from Erich Von Daniken's 'Signs of the Gods' is as good (and sadly ironic) a summary of what the 'Woke' believe 'Black Culture' to be:





Erich Von Daniken (From Jason Colavito's blog.)
Link: http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/the-astonishing-racial-claims-of-erich-von-daniken


And here is the full 'In Defence of Knowledge."



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbJWi6KkcHs
Click to expand...

Here's the bind that math teachers are in. If they fail Black students at higher rates than white students, then they will be providing evidence of structural racism. This of course is not a desirable outcome, so they have two options--find a way to make Black students as good as white students at math or just declare that they are as good and don't need to actually prove it. It's not hard to see what the path of least resistance is going to be.
 
p0lka said:
Couldn't you just create a different course about black maths or something?

Black folks will ace it and the white folks will be left behind. Cos it's black maths.
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The Oregon curriculum includes a section on "Ethnomathematics."

Recognize the ways that communities of color engage in mathematics and problem solving in their everyday lives.
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I am struggling to think of a way that communities of color engage in mathematics that white people don't that doesn't involve explicitly racist assumptions about the former.
 
Brainster said:
The Oregon curriculum includes a section on "Ethnomathematics."



I am struggling to think of a way that communities of color engage in mathematics that white people don't that doesn't involve explicitly racist assumptions about the former.
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I don't get it.

Regardless of ancestry, if kids of whatever colour grow up in a culture learning maths from a young age then they are all equally ready for more maths.

To posit that there's a difference is back to the "lesser people" stuff.
 
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p0lka said:
I don't get it.

Regardless of ancestry, if kids of whatever colour grow up in a culture learning maths from a young age then they are all equally ready for more maths.
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Sorry, that is white supremacist math:

White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when...Math is taught in a linear fashion and skills are taught sequentially without true understanding of prerequisite knowledge.
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The bit about prerequisite knowledge sounds a bit contradictory, but apparently the gripe is that some subjects shouldn't have as much prerequisite knowledge as they currently do:

While some mathematical skills and concepts build off each other, the forced construct of linear teaching reinforces objectivity. A prime example is how matrices is considered a precalculus standard, even though the only math skill needed as a prerequisite is arithmetic. This is highly detrimental to students because they are systematically deprived of knowledge they could access due to false constructs.
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I read through that guide and don't see what 'race' has to do with it. All of the examples point to culture, and some inherent differences in concept vs procedure- though exactly how that plays out, where certain non-white students understand a concept but somehow can't also follow a procedure is not explained. It's just assumed that this is some basic truth about students of color and that white supremacy is the reason. :confused:

As a parent who was taught the old "new math" before common core I can relate to this one part of it:
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.
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.
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In helping my kid with homework, I often say "Well, that's not the way I do it!". I have had to self-tutor just to help her- even with stuff back in first grade.

Last week she had an algebraic equation and I told her to get rid of the fractions on both sides first, then solve with whole numbers. She said that was "wrong" and the fractions are kept till the last step as the workbook showed.
Why make it more difficult? I told her it was a dumb way to do it and would likely lead to a higher rate of mistakes to carry all those extra numbers down. She gloated that "Mom got it wrong!".
This was empowering for her and hardly 'turned off'.
For the most part I usually just ask her to walk me through her process and most of the time she gets to a part where she says "Oh! Got it! ...never mind Mom".

I am not very useful with the new math. :p

If kids can get to the correct answer through a logical process and show their work, they should get full points.

To be more worldly as a STEM culture for all, maybe the US could fully adopt the metric system like they said we would 'very soon' when I was a kid in the 70's.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
:bigclap

That was an enjoyable 10 minutes. And who knew everyone around the world didn't get their number systems from their 10 fingers!
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Numberphile is a great channel. There are some other bases that actually turn out to be quite common. Apparently the Sumerians used base 60 which survives today in the form of minutes and seconds. This is extremely useful because it means hours can be broken down easily into halves, thirds, quarters, fifths and sixths without the need for fractions or decimal notation.

That said, I don't think many US kids are failing at math because they are accustomed to using a different base.
 
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Brainster said:
Numberphile is a great channel. There are some other bases that actually turn out to be quite useful. Apparently the Sumerians used base 60 which survives today in the form of minutes and seconds. This is extremely useful because it means hours can be broken down easily into halves, thirds, quarters, fifths and sixths without the need for fractions or decimal notation.....
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Thanks. That's another 'who knew' for my collection. :thumbsup:
 
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