First a confession: I did not do well in math in high school. Back in the olden days when I was in high school you did not have to take math past geometry, 10th grade. And in college, depending on your major, you didn’t have to take any math. I, however, did not finish college then and went back when I was 50. Guess what, I had to take two semesters of math, one of them had to be college algebra. I had to hire a tutor. And I passed both algebra and the next semester, statistics. With tutoring every week. That I paid for. And when my kids were in high school I paid for a math tutor for some of them. It did not ever cross my mind that we were being discriminated against because we had to learn math and pass math classes, even though we clearly had trouble learning it. So I may sound a little resentful that now we have to baby and pamper and pander to minorities that have a hard time with math.
So now the latest thing is that math is racist. Really? It is being said that the way of teaching math, showing your work is discriminatory. Awww. Poor babies that have to work the problem JUST LIKE EVERYONE WHO EVER TOOK MATH BEFORE!!!
So one of my children is particularly gifted in math, majored in it in college in fact. He got in endless trouble for not showing his work on his homework and exams. He had the kind of brain that could “see” the correct answer without going through all the steps. He got points off on exams. His teachers flipped out. They did not care that he could “see” the answer. He had to prove he knew the process to get there. Were his profs racist? Is he extra privileged because he is white and brilliant in math?
But now we have this:
Use the “strategy of— connecting math to socio-economic issues in the community and letting students proceed even if they haven’t mastered the skills — is captured in a workbook that gives teachers steps for “dismantling racism” in math instruction. But the book’s claim that a focus on producing the right answer promotes “white supremacy culture” alarmed some who question how inaccuracy in math could benefit students.” (the74million.org) Emphasis mine.
This newest entry into the “Are you blanking kidding me” hall of fame is funded by, wait for it, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I have said before that he apparently believes that all his money has made him a guru about, well, everything.
“this dangerous paradigm — that getting the right answer, using the right method, or believing some students are more capable than others is white supremacy — is strongly endorsed by educators, leading mathematics organizations, and policy-makers.” (National Review)
“The thesis of a 2017 book by Rochelle Gutierrez, a professor at the University of Illinois, who asserts: “On many levels, mathematics itself operates as whiteness. Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as white.” Gutierrez worries that algebra and geometry perpetuate privilege, fretting that “curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.” (National Review) P.S. Pythagoras came up with this theorem. So how is it discriminatory to call it after him?
Thankfully we also have some of this:
“The workbook’s ultimate message is clear: Black kids are bad at math, so why don’t we just excuse them from really learning it,” said Erec Smith, a professor of rhetoric and composition at York College of Pennsylvania and co-founder of Free Black Thought, who is Black.
“Math isn’t racist… but the ‘educators’ who think it needs to be changed and made easier because some black kids struggle with it… ARE,” Washington Times columnist Tim Young tweeted. (Fox News)
“The left has become so racist they accuse everyone and everything of being racist including….math,” political commentator Kim Iversen said.
So along with the most intolerant people in this country are those who chant “tolerance” we have the most racist people in this country are those who chant that everything is “racist”.
We are messed up.
The post Saying Math is Racist is Actually Racist appeared first on Freedom Headlines.
