Hi everyone! My name is Bianca Nicolescu and I'm a Math Secondary Education major with a minor in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. I am really interested in exploring the intersectionality of WGSS with education and math, and I hope I will have the opportunity to further study these topics by pursuing research at the graduate level. While I want to become a high school teacher, I aspire to become a college professor down the line and hopefully teach math at international schools abroad. I am writing this page to study antiracist pedagogies as well as various strategies that teachers can realistically implement in their classrooms. To do so, I am analyzing current educational policies in addition to ethnomathematics and essentially how we can dismantle white supremacy culture in math classrooms. I find it really intriguing how Eurocentric ideals seep into our math classrooms, which is not as expected compared to history classrooms. By building my consciousness of how math is related to culture and racism, I believe I will be able to better support my future students and cultivate a classroom community that promotes diversity and inclusivity.
Math is more than just calculations and numbers. The origins of mathematics are tied to diverse cultures that we can explore through ethnomathematics. With so many applications of math in our daily lives, math literacy can be used not only for logical thinking and problem solving, but also a resource for challenging the status quo. However, there is controversy among educational leaders about how math should be taught in schools and whether a cultural lens is required. While some feel it is imperative to make students of all backgrounds feel connected to their learning, others feel that teaching math through a lens of social justice is taking it too far. Through my research, I explore current educational policy and opposing opinions and teaching practices that can help me better inform my own perspectives on math pedagogy.
An ideal math curriculum needs to teach students to add love, subtract hate, and realize that every problem has a solution.
In an effort to select the “highest quality of instructional materials,” Florida has so far banned 54 of 132 math textbooks on its adoption list, stating that the books did not align with their Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (aka state content standards) and included prohibited topics like critical race theory (CRT). In addition to CRT, these textbooks' unsolicited inclusion of SEL learning in mathematics made them key targets for disapproval. The Florida Department of Education noted that, “Publishers are aligning their instructional materials to state standards and removing woke content allowing the department to add 17 more books to the state adoption list over the past 14 days.”
The censorship of these math textbooks has sparked outrage among educators, and shares the same sentiments with Florida’s recent passing of the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill. Both of these bills imposed by Governor DeSantis purposefully chose to remove “woke” discussions from the classroom, deeming them inappropriate. Yet, in doing so, they are indoctrinating students into a close-minded mentality. There is already so much discomfort with conversations around race, gender, and sexual orientation in our political system that we cannot afford to raise another generation who is not willing to spark change. Our students need to understand the systems that affect them on a daily basis and what they choose to do with the knowledge they receive about social systems is their choice. But, administrators should not abuse their power to influence curriculum by excluding talks about racism. It is all very political and a delicate matter, but it's something that we need to discuss, even if we do not explicitly talk about it as CRT.
To the right, I included examples of reasons why some textbooks were not approved. Florida State considers these deficiencies in instructional material, but I am still struggling to determine my own stance on this issue. Teaching has become very political and part of me sees it as an issue of “every state for themselves”. It makes sense that more conservative states are going to ban textbooks that even reference race because they want to avoid feelings of shame or discomfort. Conversely, I like to think sitting with our discomfort is the best time we can self-reflect and dismantle our own implicit biases. Change has to come from within before we can externalize it, but it seems almost impossible to change everyone’s biases. It is hard to convince people to acknowledge the negative effects of our racist and sexist institutions, but keeping the conversation on social media or in schools is part of the advocacy work.
Traditionally, math is supposed to be learning about problem solving and doing various operations to come up with a correct solution. However, this learning process is too robotic and because of this, many kids come to dislike the subject. Math classes need to be more engaging and considerate of students’ diverse identities. Thus, teaching how math can relate to different cultures is important, especially when it comes to anti-racist pedagogy. The examples posted by the Florida Department of Education do reference race, however I think it is a bit dramatic to say that they teach critical race theory. Yes, they do talk about race, but nowhere is there a discussion on undoing racism or how it is rooted in our history. In a classroom setting, I don’t even think that a teacher would dwell on it, but rather use the text to teach the larger concept of polynomials, for instance. With such a tight curriculum already, math teachers most likely don’t have time to talk about racism too. With that being said, I still believe that social justice and the historical foundations of math have a place in the math curriculum. The following resources can give us more insight into how we can incorporate culture and social justice into our teaching.
Published in May 2021, this textbook has been receiving a lot of backlash, especially from the California Education Department who refuses to implement this book into their math programs. The textbook is intended to be a tool through which teachers can explore how their actions, beliefs, and values affect their math teaching practices. More specifically, the book provides ways to teach culturally relevant and antiracist math curricula, by including questions for teachers to self-reflect on as well as strategies that could be used in the classroom. In fact, for every single month of the school year, there are guidelines for what the teachers could focus on. It used California’s Standards for the Teaching Profession as a framework for outlining how white supremacy culture can be dismantled in math classrooms. In doing so, it defines some common problems we see. For instance, there is usually a larger focus on getting the right answer instead of understanding concepts and reasoning, and students usually have to show their work in a very standardized way. In September, the article suggests focusing on “Who are my students?”. In particular, paying attention to how teachers tend to track students could dismantle the white supremacy culture that alludes to power hoarding. It is suggested that instead of tracking students, teachers should use exit tickets or surveys to ask students how well the material was taught. Teachers should also consider how students are tracked by seating charts and classroom groupings. In addition, if students speak another language, teachers should get to know their students and not consider this a deficit. For instance, teachers could learn vocabulary words in the students’ language or even use representations of learning without words.
To put theory into practice, I would take time to get to know my students better because I feel like their identities are such an important part of creating a classroom community where students can feel comfortable and even connected to one another. In order to do this, I would probably ask my students to fill out a survey on the first day of school. I would ask them to write down their pronouns, whether or not they speak another language, how they learn best, if they have any out-of-school commitments that would affect their schoolwork (like a job or taking care of a sibling), and also if they have any worries about the class. In addition, I would try not to track my students by always making partners during group work randomized. To further pursue antiracist math teaching practices, I would encourage my students to contribute varied methods to finding solutions and I would also try to teach math through a cultural lens. For example, as the article suggests, I could teach about fractions and area by using Ankara fabric (known for its colorful African prints) or how Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi, a Persian and Muslim mathematician, developed an innovative formula to solve quadratic equations. Finally, I will also try to practice introspection by reflecting on my actions at the end of every week. I honestly love journaling my thoughts, so writing down what I am feeling or how I think I could improve will keep me in check and help me become a better teacher. Continuing to attend professional development conferences at my school and through the NJEA would greatly supplement and support my in classroom actions. Moreover, I will strive to cultivate a culturally-inclusive classroom environment where my students’ appreciation of diversity and inclusivity continuously grows.
by Marilyn Frankenstein
This article discusses the idea of radical math, which emphasizes the importance of math literacy as a form of social justice since learning math goes beyond quantitative reasoning. The author proposes strategies that enforce anti-racist teaching practices because they believe that teachers spend too much time babysitting students instead of helping them actually learn. Students often find math curriculum boring and irrelevant to their lives. This is what Paulo Freire, a leading advocate for critical pedagogy, describes as “banking methods”: “‘expert’ teachers deposit knowledge in the presumably blank minds of their students; students memorize the required rules and expect future dividends” (Frankenstein 78). Instead of this teaching practice, we have to learn to give students ways to control their own learning. Students should use math to analyze complex, adult issues as it will increase their intellectual self-image. In addition, radical math can help students practice slow and careful thinking that is required for them to critically think about our social structures.
To implement these strategies in my own classroom, I would craft original word problems that are relatable to modern issues that affect students. For instance, in a calculus class, I could create integral problems that relate to climate change by asking students to find the volume of pollutants in a particular lake. In a statistics class, we can consider the pandemic and investigate data on how effective the vaccine truly is by studying confidence intervals and margin of error. To further continue, I would try to support my students by giving them the option to keep a math journal, where they can express their feelings about the class, their homework and assignments, or comment on how they feel about their progress.
by Ubiratan D'Ambrosio
Ethnomathematics is a term used to describe the intersection between culture and mathematics, and can be used to engage students in pluralistic math lessons and activities. In fact, the author feels that math should be used as a medium through which teachers can restore and reaffirm “the cultural dignity of children” (D’Ambrosio 308). Math curricula often teach abstract concepts that students cannot relate to, and in doing so, we fail to properly prepare students for realistic jobs. Our goal in mathematics education is to teach students how to use modern technology to solve problems and share their thinking. Teaching mathematics by rote ignores the diverse values, traditions, beliefs, and languages that students bring to the classroom, which deters them from understanding math on a deeper level. A prime example of this is how students learn of ancient Greek mathematicians like Pythagoreas through the Pythagorean theorem, yet they are not taught of the contributions made by the Egyptians, Babylonians, or the Incas. There is such a richness within math history that is imperative to share with our students.
I would suggest implementing this in the classroom through a project. Students could be allowed to work in groups and the project could be to research an era in math history or a particular mathematician. Through this, the teacher should make a list of diverse mathematicians that the students could choose to further explore. As for lessons, there are a lot of creative ways to incorporate cultural references in math. One website suggests using Japanese origami to teach about ratios, patterns, symmetry or even studying various kinds of cultural music by looking at patterns and audio frequencies (TODOS).
Podcast by Paul Peterson
During the Education Exchange podcast, Paul Peterson (host) met with former U.S Assistant Secretary of Education, Williamson M. Evers to discuss proposed math curricula in California. They believe that people are too passionate about finding racism in education, and through their discussion they criticize, if not also laugh at, theories behind antiracist math pedagogy presented by the A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction textbook. Rather than seeing how math intersects with other fields of study, they believe contributions in math are valuable because they are right, but it is not important because of its cultural origins and we shouldn’t care about it because of its cultural origins. They go on to talk about how knowledge is power, especially when it comes to power for our nation. Essentially, they agree that we need good teachers to teach our kids math because companies need to recruit more people with a higher math intelligence. Unlike other countries, we supposedly lack the talent we need to move our country forward. In fact, apparently kids are not living up to their potential because they are not being given good instruction, meaning they are not equipped to handle the challenges these companies need them to be facing.
I think this is so interesting to think about how math should be taught in schools, and it is important to consider whether teaching math through a cultural lens is realistic. I think that perhaps there should be room for using culturally responsive math pedagogies, but maybe it should take a different form. I would probably start implementing these ideas by creating courses in my high school that specifically teach about the culture of math. I still believe that math teachers should be inclusive of students who speak a language other than English and relate material to their lives, but to learn more about math from a historical perspective, I think a separate class should be created.