Liberals claim teaching math reinforces white supremacy
https://themilitant.com/2021/06/05/liberals-claim-teaching-math-reinforces-white-supremacy/
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
Vol. 85/No. 23
June 14, 2021
New math curriculum promoted for California schools says “old math” that
focuses on “objectivity” and “getting the right answer” shows “toxic
characteristics of white supremacy culture.”
New math curriculum promoted for California schools says “old math” that
focuses on “objectivity” and “getting the right answer” shows “toxic
characteristics of white supremacy culture.”
Claiming they’re taking steps to root out white supremacy, California’s
State Board of Education and similar authorities in other states are
considering a new curriculum that would upend how mathematics is taught
in public schools. It’s outlined in a document titled, “A Pathway to
Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.”
The document says it offers “exercises for educators to reflect on their
own biases to transform their instructional practice” by “making visible
the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture.”
The manual asserts that these “characteristics” involve a focus on
“getting the right answer,” teaching math in a “linear fashion,” and
requiring students to “show their work.”
“The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally
false,” the manual asserts. “Upholding the idea that there are always
right and wrong answers perpetuates ‘objectivity,’” and this promotes
racism.
If this anti-scientific proposition — part of a broader social agenda
that says race is the determining factor in history and everything else
— were seriously pursued, no home could be built, no plane could fly,
and much of what working people require to live would disappear.
“White supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher
actions,” the course description says. “Coupled with the beliefs that
underlie these actions, they perpetuate educational harm on Black,
Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full access to the world
of mathematics.”
To counter this, the document asserts “antiracist” math educators must
“deconstruct the ways they have been taught math to learn and teach math
differently.”
This would include a priority on ethnomathematics. “Identify and
challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist,
and racist views,” the curriculum says.
In response to a May 19 Wall Street Journal article about this math
curriculum, a number of letters were printed several days later under
the headline, “In California, 2+2=4 May Be Thought Racist.”
“The ‘woke’ seem to live a dream world of their creation that has little
grounding in the world they live in,” wrote Mike Walker from Meridian,
Idaho. “Taking away the ability to do mathematics means students cannot
become engineers or doctors. They can’t become computer scientists. They
can’t become a plumber or electrician or carpenter. Consider
architecture and accounting. The ‘can’t’ list goes on and on.”
The ultimate target of “critical race theory” is the working class, the
only class that can defend and advance human culture. This “theory” aims
to cover over the fact that all gains won by working people have been
the result of the struggle of class versus class, not race against race.
It says all U.S. history is based on white supremacy, and all Caucasians
are inherently racist.
If this “woke” scheme is implemented, it will cut across students’
ability to learn math and put it to use. The newly proposed California
curriculum, for example, rejects preparing students to take Algebra I in
the 8th grade. But this is something students in California were making
important progress on — going from 16% of students prepared to do so in
1999 to 67% by 2013.
“The biggest beneficiaries were ethnic minority and low-income
students,” noted the Journal. “African-American students’ success rate
jumped by a factor of five, and Latinos’ and low-income students’ by a
factor of six.”
Front Page Articles
Refinery workers fight ExxonMobil lockout
Iranian rulers seek to tighten grip, advance Mideast clout
SWP: ‘Workers need a fighting class-struggle road forward’
Worldwide caravans demand: End US embargo against Cuba!
Victory! Florida prisons lift ban on ‘Militant,’ Indiana fight continues
Biden $6 trillion budget won’t end jobs crisis, will push up prices
Feature Articles
Alabama miners rally, win solidarity in strike battle
Also In This Issue
Liberals claim teaching math reinforces white supremacy
Thanks to all! SWP ‘stimulus’ fund will help build the party
SWP attacked at Louisville rally over call to recognize both Israel,
Palestine
Manchester bus drivers strike pushed back bosses’ attack
Belarus dictator forces plane down, seizes protester
Back iron ore workers strike in north Quebec
Campaign to expand reach of ‘Militant,’ books, fund goal April 24 - June
29 (week five)
Editorials
Workers need our own party, a labor party
On the Picket Line
Striking Quebec meatpackers march for wages, respect
Coffee workers in UK win international solidarity
Books of the Month
Mighty rise of unions in 1930s posed need for a labor party
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Corrections
© Copyright 2021 The Militant - 306 W. 37th Street, 13th floor - New
York, NY 10018 - themilitant@xxxxxxx
Cookies
This site uses cookies to improve your experience. Learn more.
Okay, thanks
--
Irvin D. Yalom “Truth," Nietzsche continued, "is arrived at through
disbelief and skepticism, not through a childlike wishing something were
so! Your patient's wish to be in God's hands is not truth. It is simply
a child's wish—and nothing more! It is a wish not to die, a wish for the
eveastingly bloated nipple we have labeled 'God'! Evolutionary theory
scientifically demonstrates God's redundancy—though Darwin himself had
not the courage to follow his evidence to its true conclusion. Surely,
you must realize that we created God, and that all of us together now
have killed him.” ― Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept