Ep 4: Tonya Clark: "Mathematics and Social Justice"

In this episode of the podcast Method to Mathness,  Tonya Clark speaks about the method of making math familiar versus relevant. As a teacher, she understood that when making "real world" problems for her students, she must prioritize making her math relevant. What she means by this is starting with a problem that students see in the outside world and then bring the math into it. While students are familiar about cellular data plans, problems like this are not relevant in their lives. Clark was intentional in her lesson planning to ensure that she incorporated difficult conversations about social injustice to bring passion into her classroom.

Additionally, Clark did not limit her classroom to just math. Enhancing the project about policing, Clark collaborated with history teachers since they are more skilled in why the numbers are the way they are. The students were able to analyze data but that arose questions about why which resulted in a combined math and history lesson. This method of incorporating other subjects into the lesson enhances the passion of those students who never enjoyed mathematics in the first place.

In my own classroom, I hope that I can use both these methods. I've always known that creating real-world problems would be the easiest and possibly the best way to incorporate social justice into my lessons. However, Clark made me realize the true meaning of real-world. If I want my students to enjoy math and make it worthwhile, I must allow them to study topics that they are passionate about surrounding social justice. I want the projects that my students do in my class to give them motivation to fight for what they believe and realize the importance of student activism. Additionally, I want to utilize my coworkers. I have never had a math teacher who brought in a history teacher to collaborate on a lesson together. I want to face the fear of mixing the humanities with stem and instead, uncover the potential that a joint lesson has.

While this website includes multiple lesson plans and resources surrounding numerous social issues that is present in the world today, the main topic that I would like the focus on is the push for student activism. On the website, there is a lesson plan titled "Organizing for the Future" that uses algebra to determine the necessary actions that are needed for a successful turnout at a protest. In this assignment, students are taken through eight questions that involve both mathematics where they must create graphs, inequalities, systems, etc., but are also asked about their opinions on the social issue at hand. In this case, this methods combines a worksheet of math questions with more personal and thought provoking questions that pushes students to think outside of their comfort zone. Students don't just think about math in the way of numbers and equations but instead, they are supposed to use the math to explain their stance but also to expand their knowledge of how they themselves can make a difference.

I think that in the future, I definitely am going to use this website as inspiration or even utilize the worksheets to enhance lessons in my classroom. This website gives teachers a strong foundation and understanding of how to incorporate tough discussions into their lessons that do not solely deal with numbers. I personally like the "Organizing for the Future" worksheet because of the message behind the lesson but also the different kinds of questions. I want my students to have passion and to understand that when something is wrong, they should want to use their voice to fix it. After all, they are the future generations of the world and they should want to improve it. Also, in the assignment the last question has nothing to deal with mathematics. I don't want my students to see me as a person who only deals with numbers. I want to create relationships with them at a deeper level and in order to do that, I need to have difficult conversations with them that helps them grow as individuals.

This article stresses the importance of making everyone in the classroom feel seen and that the only way of doing this is by including social justice in our lessons. An easy way to do this is by talking to the students. By getting a general idea of what they are interested and what they are passionate about allows teachers to make their classroom more engaging but also worth it. When teachers are faced with the option of incorporating social justice, they are hesitant because of the backlash that they will receive. However, this article highlights the different methods that teachers can use when faced with this issue. There are multiple different social injustices that are present in the world that does not have to highlight any teacher's political beliefs. Additionally, if they leave it up to their students, they are not forcing anything onto them because they are able to take their own injustice that they are passionate about and learn the math in the mean time. If we want well-rounded students we should incorporate as much as possible into our lessons so they can get the most of their education.

In my classroom, I understand that incorporating social justice into calculus can be difficult. However, I also understand the benefit that it has to students. While I can have lessons that don't incorporate those kinds of lessons, I definitely want to devote time into longer projects where my students can think of those topics that they are passionate about and actually think of ways to fight for what they believe in. I want my students to have the freedom to choose in my classroom and I want all of them to feel included. This can be easily done but expressing that I acknowledge all aspects of their identities and try to incorporate them into my lessons and their own assignments so they feel that they have a place in our classroom.

This article highlights, Gawarecki, a math professor who started a class at his university that was centered on social justice and math. The whole method of the class is to start with the background of the issue and eventually ending with the math. A lot of times on media, people only see the narrative and what happened when. However, behind the story there are many numbers that are both surprising and sometimes disturbing. By bringing in the story in combination with the math, students are introduced to a new perspective of current events. In some schools students aren't even given the chance to become inspired with real world issues because they are not exposed to this realm of math and humanities. Gawarecki emphasizes the importance of bringing context into the classroom to expose the extent of the problem and why it is a problem. Then students independently uses math strategies to make observations and discoveries that uncover a new truth about the social issue.

A way that I would want to bring this into my classroom is devoting an amount of time for independent study. While I understand that this can be a long shot, it would be something that I think would inspire my students to continue outside of the classroom. I would create certain requirements so they choose their own route and make them present their foundings. Additionally, this article inspired me to continue the movement. If my own district does not have a class surrounding math and social justice, I want to create it. While my own coworkers may not agree with the stance, that does not mean I cannot work harder to just add it into my own classroom. I hope my students find passion for something that is not grades. The only way for this to be done is me constantly fighting for social justice in math. It starts with teachers who are willing to devote time to it.

The website, "Skew the Script," is all about making math interesting. There are so many students who dread going to make class because they just don't see the point. This website offers so many different resources that provides teachers with the creativity that they might need to actually make the decision to bring these topics to their class. Another hesitancy that teachers might have is the worry about the social issue lessons not meeting the curriculum or possibly AP requirements. However, this website includes different resources for the AP test that includes all aspects they need to learn for the exam. 

I see myself using this website all the time as a teacher. Something that I am scared about it actually having the creativity and knowledge to make assignments that exposes my students to the different current events that are going on. However, after seeing websites like these, I realized that it is okay to use the resources available to me as long as my students are still benefitting from it. Going into mathematics, I didn't know what I was going to do with the kids who simply just do not like math. However, if math is everywhere, make it connect to what they do like. I just need to bring a different perspective into my class that some students have not seen and they could possible have a different opinion of it.