Profs: Math classes 'inaccessible and oppressive' to students

[ConstitutionRose]

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10059

A group of professors argues in a newly-published book that math teachers must “live out social justice commitments” to fight privilege in the classroom.

The professors made the argument in a new anthology for math teachers, jointly authored by a trio of Mathematics Education professors: Pennsylvania State University’s Andrea McCloskey, Kennesaw State University Professor Brian Lawler, and Ohio State University Professor Theodore Chao.

Math teachers, “must learn how to advocate for students, self-examine for biases, and strategically subvert the system in which they teach to counteract student oppression,” the professors argue, adding that the development of “political knowledge” is key.

To do this, the professors spell out several recommendations for math teachers, such as finding “strategies for disrupting current mathematics education norms” and developing “a critical orientation towards mathematics.”

Math teachers should also be especially critical of so-called “discourses of education,” such as claims that “schools are failing,” since these discourses can serve to reify privilege at the expense of minority and underprivileged students, the authors note.

This is especially necessary considering the state of mathematics classrooms, which they argue can be “inaccessible and oppressive” for students who don’t have the “privilege and power” of mathematics professors, for whom the subject is far less difficult.

Apparently, the ability to reason is a symptom of "privilege and power" and is to be wiped out in the name of equality.

[Applewood]

Well, math class was oppressive to me too and I'm white.  To this day, I still need a calculator to add 2 numbers together. 

What's this karp about self-examining for biases and what not?  Math is math.  There are no gray areas.  There are no biases. Either you come up with the right answer or you don't.   Doesn't matter what race,  color, religion, ethnicity or sexual perversion you identify with.

By the way, schools are indeed failing and one of the reasons is that too much time is being spent on "social justice" and not enough on even the basics like reading, writing and math.  These kids might graduate, but they can't even fill out a job application.  If these professors spent more time teaching and less time indoctrinating, we might actually have graduates who are functionally literate.