This has got to be an over simplification of whatever this new idea is. I hope
I see a reference to it in other publications. On the face of it, it sounds
insane. But I remember when The Militant was supporting a bunch of right
wingers who felt they had a right to use public lands for their own private
profit, in that case, grazing their cattle on it and it was a cause celebre of
the SWP.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Sunday, June 6, 2021 10:26 AM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Liberals claim teaching math reinforces white
supremacy
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.”
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--
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