In this article, “Teaching Math Through a Social Justice Lens,” Catherine Gewertz writes about the importance of incorporating topics of social justice in a math class. One would not normally think to incorporate such a topic into a math class, let alone know how to incorporate it. The strategy, addressed by the article, states that we need to relate the math topics to real-world situations. Many teachers will argue that math is a class where numbers are the primary language; it will be hard to discuss social justice due to the nature of the course. However, by teaching social justice topics in a math class, the teacher provides the chance “to help students use math to understand and critique the world around them, and find ways to change it” (Gewertz).

I believe it is important for children to learn about math while seeing how and why it relates to their lives. While following the curriculum provided, I would incorporate social justice topics into my classroom by including examples that relate to their lives such as statistics and analyses through many social justice topics: community, environment, culture, and activism, just to name a few. By providing these real-life examples, one would not get the question when will I ever need to know this? I am never going to use this information again, am I? Incorporating social justice topics will help those students that are most often marginalized in math classrooms. This can easily be executed by creating word problems that are based on social justice topics too. Some of these topics will be eye-opening to many students and can help their future. 

For example:

During a lesson on statistics in my classroom, I could assign each student, or a group of students, a general social justice topic. Then, I would have them research statistics that they could then turn into pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs, etc. Not only would this teach them about many kinds of graphs, but I would also be teaching them about fractions and decimals since I would ask them to convert all of the percentages into fractions and decimals. I would have the students present their findings and ask them to discuss any opinions or ideas about their given issue. 

Gewertz, Catherine. “Teaching Math Through a Social Justice Lens.” Education Week. 2 December, 2020. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-

learning/teaching-math-through-a-social-justice-lens/2020/12  

In this article, the author, Ashley Okwuosa, describes how a Mathematics class can incorporate racial justice in its curriculum. Okwuosa also describes how one teacher incorporates racial justice learning into their classroom. "In To’s class, for example, students examine the issue of police carding through proportional reasoning: students do a probability experiment where coloured blocks — representing the proportion of white, Black, brown, and “other” in the Toronto population 2011 — are placed in a bag. They then pick random blocks from the bag and note the color" (Okwuosa). This demonstration of probability follows the curriculum while also addressing topics that are included in racial justice. “The important math that is the key element is central to the activity, but we’re learning about a social issue through the context" (Okwuosa).

From this teacher's strategy, I can see myself creating problems where I involve racial justice. If I am teaching a section on probability and statistics, I can use real statistics or have my students find real statistics according to something they are interested in: populations, unemployment, crime rates, graduation rates, etc. I would put my students into groups, have them decide on a topic, and start researching the statistics. 

For example: 

According to the National Center for Statistics Center, "In school year 2018–19, the national adjusted cohort graduation rate (ACGR) for public high school students was 86 percent... Asian/Pacific Islander students had the highest ACGR (93 percent), followed by White (89 percent), Hispanic (82 percent), Black (80 percent), and American Indian/Alaska Native (74 percent) students."

Say a group of students completed their research and this was their findings. I would then instruct them to either create a chart, create a graph, or convert to fractions or decimals. That way, my students would we learning how to convert statistics into graphs, fractions, or decimals while also learning about racial injustices. Then, I would have my students, in their groups, present their findings as well as why they believed that their topic was important/ why they were most interested in it. 

Okwuosa, Ashley. "What does an anti-racost class look like?" TVO. The Ontario Educational Communications Authority. 9 August 2021. 

https://www.tvo.org/article/what-does-an-anti-racist-math-class-look-like 

"Public High School Graduation Rates." National Center for Statistics Center. U.S Department of Education. May 2021. 

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/coi 

As educators and scholars working in the field of education, the authors of this journal entry believe that “social, political, and ecological issues are integrally intertwined with education theory, research, and practice” (Wolfmeyer, etc). The strategy in this journal to incorporate ecojustice into math education begins with introducing examples of critical mathematics in EcoJustice Education. Then, the next goal is, as the educator, to pose your position on the relationship between the subject and address social injustice. Next, the strategy includes building EcoJustice Math Education through critical math education, ethnomathematics, and more. These steps alone will help set apart Math as an ecological language and practice where the goals are to “1) to denaturalize normative views about the world and 2) question human beings’ hierarchical position within it” (Wolfmeyer etc).

Following the strategy in the journal, the best way to incorporate such topics is by including examples of critical mathematics in EcoJustice Education by including examples in math education that involves all areas-sustainability, the use of natural resources, depletion of resource--students will become more familiar with these topics and question the system. As stated before, by introducing topics that are not normally taught in a math classroom, children will become more educated and informed on these topics. I will incorporate ecojustice education into my word problems and statistic problems. Another demonstration I could do is reference a water bottle and ask the students to estimate how many of the water bottles it would take to fill a bathtub. Not only would this talk about natural resources and the use of water, but students would also learn about volume capacity. If we dedicate time where we focus on a "case study," we can evaluate the case study and see how it applies to the topic at that point in the curriculum. By sharing our position on the relationship between math education and addressing social injustice, the students will see the importance of these topics and want to learn more. As a teacher, I will be able to express my opinions as well as why I think they are important to everyone despite the grade level. 

For example:

According to the article "Water Waste Facts: Stats About Water Consumption & Usage," people use about 37 gallons of water for an average shower. I could incorporate this idea of waste into my math lesson when I am teaching about volume. I can reference, hold up, pass around a water bottle and ask the students to estimate how many of the water bottles it would take to fill a bathtub/ use during a shower. Not only would this talk about natural resources and the use of water, but students would also learn about volume capacity. 

"Water Waste Facts: Stats About Water Consumption & Usage. Eco Friendly Habits. https://www.ecofriendlyhabits.com/water-wasting-facts/ 

Wolfmeyer, M., Lupinacci, J., and Chesky, N., “EcoJustice Mathematics Education: An Ecocritical (Re)construction for 21st Century Curricular 

Challenges.” Journal of  Curriculum Theorizing https://journal.jctonline.org/index.php/jct/article/viewFile/626/pdf 

This podcast, hosted by Eva Thanheiser and joined by guest Dr. Julia Aguirre, talks about how teachers can incorporate social justice into their math classrooms. Dr. Julia Aguirre is a faculty director of the teacher certification programs and associate professor at the University of Washington Tacoma in the School of Education. During their discussion, they both agreed that "social justice pedagogies and mathematical modeling are both under emphasized in mathematics, Teacher Education, and preparation." From there, they go on to talk about how they think teachers should make mathematic more relevant and to students. Dr. Aguirre had done research about the Flint Water Crisis where she had asked questions: "how was this done? How does the Flint Water task influence or impact the ways teachers might experience and learn about mathematical modeling and social justice issues that can be analyzed with mathematics." This way of using real-world scenarios and events allows for a teacher to discuss and educate their students on real events and issues in their mathematics classroom.

In my future classroom, utilizing real-world events will allow me to touch on social justice topics while also following the curriculum. For instance, I could bring up issues such as The Flint Water Crisis (as Dr. Julia Aguirre did), Climate Justice Rallies/Climate Justice Stats, wage gaps, and healthcare gaps. I would have the students research these numbers and find how we can analyze social injustices using mathematics. Can we create a pie chart? Can we create a line graph? Can we find the average? These social injustices could also be broken down further into racial injustices. What is the wage gap between men and women, what about between races? There are many questions that we can ask to have social injustices relate to our curriculum. 

For Example:

Using the podcast, I could take similar strategies that Dr. Aguirre had used and implement them into my teaching. For instance, similarly to how Dr. Aguirre used the Flint Water Crisis as an example to tie in social injustice and climate injustice, I could find an event that I could relate my lesson to. In St. Joseph, Louisianna, they experienced a similar crisis. Using these events would allow me to incorporate more than just math into my lesson. 

In this article, “Social Justice in the Math Classroom” written by Diane Hollister, Hollister gives diversity and social justice topics for her students to explore. Some of her major and general topics include “Prisons and mental health rates,” “Poverty and minimum vs. living wage; labor laws and statistics,” “Impact of tutoring and other initiative such as mentoring and coaching on diverse populations,” “Environmental racism, pollution, resource availability; the mathematics of the climate,” “Credit cards,” “Saving/budgeting,” “High-cost loans and low-income neighborhoods,” and “Politics and voting structure/apportionment, etc.” All of these headlines are followed by specific topics in each heading.

As a future educator, I can see myself incorporating some topics into my classrooms. Not only would these ideas and topics be great research opportunities, but they can also teach children how we can easily manipulate graphs and data (both correctly and incorrectly). So many areas fall in line with political and social aspects; probability, wages, graph theory, etc. Instead of creating made-up graphs, we can look at real graphs that correlate to real-world situations. The article gave examples of how to relate traffic stop data and use statistics to determine where there is/ is no racial profiling at play. I think this covers both math education and social justice education and I would be excited to see how I can come up with concepts that cover both as well.

For Example:

I imagine myself creating an assignment or project that involves my students choosing (or being given) an injustice: wage gap between genders, wage between races, etc. With this assignment, I would have the research the statistics and facts and have them create a chart. Similar to other examples, I would have them create a chart representing the data they had found and elaborating on what those statistics and facts meant. 

Hollister, Diane. “Social Justice in the Math Classroom.” Pearson. 16 November 2020. https://www.pearson.com/ped-blogs/blogs/2020/11/social-

justice-in-the-math-classroom.html