And maybe the parents won’t notice.
So, apparently, there’s an “intersection of mathematics and social justice.” In fact, there’s an entire six-week teacher-training course devoted to this hitherto unrecognised intersection and its propagation among middle-school children, i.e., the young and unsuspecting. Especially, of course, the “social justice” part:
Do you ask students to think deeply about global and local social justice issues within your mathematics classroom? This education and teacher training course will help you blend secondary math instruction with topics such as inequity, poverty, and privilege to transform students into global thinkers and mathematicians.
Yes, students will be transformed.
As Campus Reform’s Toni Airaksinen reports,
Participants in the online course are given sample ideas for lessons they could create, such as using math to teach students about “Unpaid Work Hours in the Home by Gender” and “Race and Imprisonment Rates in the United States.”
Loaded insinuations are so much easier to get away with when you’re dealing with impressionable youngsters.
The module also identifies five main themes of “intersectional mathematics,” including “mathematical ethics,” which refers to the notion that math is often used as a tool of oppression, according to the instructors. “For centuries, mathematics has been used as a dehumanising tool,” they write, citing the example of how IQ can be used against people who score in the lower half of the distribution.
And so children – other people’s children – must be taught to “subvert power, question normalcy, and change society as we understand it.” When, strictly speaking, they should be learning about more humdrum things, like geometry, trigonometry and spatial reasoning.
And if you assume that shame alone will stop such people, or give them pause, even momentarily, I very much think you’re wrong.
Intersection. Intersectional.
They keep using those words. I do not think they mean what they think they mean.
(More evidence in support of Iowahawk’s “Physics Envy” theory, I believe.)
16 X 9 = white privilege.
See also this. It’s “whiteness,” you see.
And Gad Saad alerts us to the existence of queer mathematics.
10 internet points to anyone who can explain the advantage of ‘non-western’ mathematics, those not based on ‘formal reasoning and proof’.
You may not show your workings.
Next week: Why irrational numbers are stigmatising, ableist and discriminatory.
This seems apposite given the subject matter. Apologies if it’s been featured here before:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM
Note that the sponsoring organization is Teach For America, a private organization originally formed to get young college graduates into distressed public schools where others would not go. The organization has come under fire from the Left for many years for various reasons, including the fact that it threatens the hegemony of the Progressive Education Complex.
It would appear, the Left is trying to subvert it per the evergreen Iowahawk tweet above by perpetuating grievance among the students while diluting that actual subject matter.
Oh, this is old hat — they want to introduce (and in some states have introduced) “intersectional mathematics” into all school curriculum as part of the thing that will eventually replace the Common Core everybody’s talking about now.
Meet WIDA:
https://www.wida.us/aboutus/mission.aspx
As an English teacher I get to go to plenty of mandatory, voluntary teaching seminars…these guys are always there and usually leading the charge, and they are involved in more than just the humanities, trust me. STEM’s got plenty of teachers that are completely on board with this — they’re going the way of the humanities for quite some time now.
perpetuating grievance among the students while diluting that actual subject matter.
It does, I think, reveal the fundamentally parasitic nature of so-called “social justice education.” It’s insinuated into more reputable subjects, slyly, without parents’ knowledge or approval, and results in the subject on which it piggy-backs – and whose class time it uses – being intellectually degraded, thereby reducing any benefit that might have otherwise been had.
And so a field of study that is largely independent of social and political value judgements, and that is of importance precisely because of its potential for encouraging precise but abstract thinking, is criticised as a tool of political “oppression,” in part because it encourages precise but abstract thinking, which not everyone is good at. And this is done on grounds that brown-skinned students just can’t cope with maths unless it’s couched in terms of, say, racial incarceration rates. (Though I’m guessing that the racial demographics of perpetrators of crime, as reported by their victims, won’t be presented quite so eagerly, if at all.)
But really, one cannot teach STEM disciplines without a heavy helping of Angry Studies, because otherwise, minority students will not succeed in such subjects.
Somewhat related, pretty much everything here.
Because expectations of attentiveness, basic grammar, even punctuality, in fact almost any kind of competence, are now racist and oppressive.
Well, they certainly appropriated and parasitized the English departments. I was one of the young people, one of the young, stupidly idealistic people, who did a fair amount of research for the ESL/LD linguistics learning (25 years ago it was a chaotic mess, so it did need a lot of work) and for the writing in STEM fields initiatives (which did need to happen — I can remember being asked/paid to edit some graduate level publications…some of our STEM folks really needed to take some grammar/rhetoric courses, my goodness).
I thought it was going to be such a thing that people would learn how to read and write better (and listen/speak). I thought it was to bring about a renaissance of good reading and writing, of the professional English instructor that actually taught those things, not social justice warrior shenanigans. Ah, the best laid plans, the path of good intentions… I feel a bit used, a bit betrayed, to be honest.
“Next week: Why irrational numbers are stigmatising, ableist and discriminatory.”
Just great. Now I want some Pi.
Something said here on this thread, whatever it was is lost to me now, sent me down a rabbit hole that bottomed out at this page. You may find it useful…or not.
https://sjwlist.com/Main_Page
Next week: Why irrational numbers are stigmatising, ableist and discriminatory
And don’t get me started on the suppression of the Tessarines, Coquaternions, and Quaternions.
Why irrational numbers are stigmatising, ableist and discriminatory.
Merely calling them “irrational” is as stigmatizing as calling someone a “retarded” person. Woke people call them alternatively reasonable numbers.
I notice the only number in Dr. Warburton’s abstract is toll-free.
Physics envy at its apogee.
It’s worth noting the sheer arrogance of the educators who are foisting their own politics on any children left in their care. And as the educators must know that many parents will disagree with the conceits of “social justice” and will object to these attempts to indoctrinate their children, the educators’ persistence in doing it anyway, without parental consent, suggests outright disdain for those parents.
Somewhat cynically, I note that adding non-math content to math class is an effective way to grade inflate any utter fucking imbeciles who happen to be in your classroom and need to be passed, come hell or high water, rather than be held back or serve as a highlight of a failing district.
If this non-math content aligns with your political aims in raising said UFIs to be both “woke” and ignorant, as well as knowing somewhere deep down they’ve been badly done by somebody (and thus oppositionally defiant – useful), so much the better.
…without parental consent, suggests outright disdain for those parents.
In the U.S. among the public school clique, that is absolutely true. I know from personal experience, modern “educators” are taught to minimize, marginalize, and ignore parental concerns. They are taught to hide things from parents deliberately. The first clue is when one’s child does not bring home school work for parental review and teachers deflect requests to see same. The stories are legion in this country and the response from the educational establishment is to express some vague non-apology apology and the continue.
“Unpaid Work Hours in the Home”
Why are Leftists so obsessed with money? Why can’t they learn to measure human wealth by other means, like happiness, enjoyment, contentment and fulfillment? Money mad, they are.
“help you blend secondary math instruction … to transform students …
… For centuries, mathematics has been used as a dehumanising tool”
Mm-hm.
“queer mathematics”
What, like “up x yellow = rhinoceros”?
More evidence in support of Iowahawk’s “Physics Envy” theory, I believe.
Von Mises got there about a century before him with “scientism”, but yes. It’s a sort of cargo-cult. They think if they make it sound scientific, it is scientific.
What, like “up x yellow = rhinoceros”?
Sorry, I had to fix this. “up x yellow = giraffe”? Math and all,….
You guys are the funniest, non political hacks.
10 internet points to anyone who can explain the advantage of ‘non-western’ mathematics, those not based on ‘formal reasoning and proof’.
Well, given the Indians and the Arabs, that does leave one multiplying by zero.
For all instances of One.
Oh, and noting that this fad is inherently non-mathematical, so that of calling it mathematical training this isn’t right, this isn’t even wrong,there does happen to be a rather Brilliant solution.
—Hmmm. I wonder if a duly immediate response for such should be Let’s go try that out on Brilliant.org!!—and then thus go back to playing in reality.
“queer mathematics”
What, like “up x yellow = rhinoceros”?
Theatre Rhinoceros
Do you ask students to think deeply about global and local social justice issues within your mathematics classroom?
I think whoever wrote the Labour manifesto might have had the benefit of this kind of education: http://bit.ly/2qv4zVZ Diane Abbott, definitely…
Zero is a non-western invention, not a non-western mathematics.
Put The Bell Curve on the reading list to help them with stats.
Since all children are the property of the state, and parents are not only unnecessary but harmful; it all makes perfect sense.
For crying out loud! Maths is maths: it’s a discipline strictly based on valid proofs. It has no connotation whatsoever with social justice.
Even worse, we’ve now got misguided idiots in various governments suggesting that, if only the mathematicians would “nerd harder”, they could produce a version of encryption with a ‘secure’ back-door. Firstly, that is downright impossible. Secondly, the latest ransomware attack is based on code filched from a recent breach of the NSA’s database. If the NSA can’t protect itself, do you place any credence on its notion of what may be considered secure?
“It’s “whiteness,” you see.”
“For this study I draw on discursive understandings of the operation of power and Whiteness Theory in order to understand the ways in which the discourses of mathematics serve to exclude the discourses of social justice.”
mumble, mumble, BS, mumble, mumble,…
16 x 9 That’s gross.
Social Justice Math is just coming up with a cycle of ritual human sacrifice.
I heard somewhere that used to be a thing.
Probably why the big O in the center of those calendars gets fed.
Only hearts and minds. Keeps the faculty occupied.
ISWYDT rtw
rtw – “16 x 9 That’s gross.”
Sir, you win the day. I am hitting Lagavulin early. I have nothing after that.
‘So, apparently, there’s an “intersection of mathematics and social justice.”’
Presumably revolving around multiples of the square root of minus one.
” … to transform students into global thinkers and mathematicians.”
I see they have their priorities set. “Global thinkers” first, mathematicians as secondary.
Do you ask students to think deeply about global and local social justice issues within your mathematics classroom?
No, we ask our students to think deeply about calculus and trigonometry in our mathematics classroom. What kind of moron would include “social justice” in their math classes?
For this study I draw on discursive understandings of the operation of power and Whiteness Theory …
“Whiteness Theory” is kind of like the Nazi Aryan thing but in reverse, isn’t it?
And in other ‘intersectional maths’ news:
However, the “problem” supposedly created by the hiring of, and existence of, of white men was deemed much too obvious to actually specify.
A University of Hawaii professor recently claimed that universities should “stop hiring white cis men” until “the problem goes away.”
Check out her CV:
http://www.theliberatedmathematician.com/cv/
Check out her CV
Yes, madam has supped at the teat of “social justice” – and heavens, look at the result. It’s a CV that, for any sane potential employer, would most likely ring alarm bells. It positively screams DO NOT HIRE. And yet to pass over madam’s application, with its teetering vanities, would doubtless be construed as proof of systemic misogyny, racism, “white supremacy,” etc. Rather than the sensible avoidance of an identitarian narcissist.
John, you want want to hear about the 288 then. It’s too gross.
Compare and contrast.
In Room 101, I learnt that 1 + 1 = 2 was a artefact of the global white Patriarchy, and no longer believe that old mathematical heresy. Nowadays when someone asks me how many fingers they are holding up, I first check my white privilege and ask how many they need me to say there is, so as to combat racism, sexism and other stuff that I am responsible for but never knew.
This new social justice mathematics is difficult, as the answers don’t seem to be the same over time.
It’s insinuated into more reputable subjects, slyly, without parents’ knowledge or approval, and results in the subject on which it piggy-backs – and whose class time it uses – being intellectually degraded, thereby reducing any benefit that might have otherwise been had.
It’s worth noting the sheer arrogance of the educators who are foisting their own politics on any children left in their care.
It might interest you to know that this training initiative is quite likely a response to the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa)’s call for a Global Competency for an Inclusive World
In other words, far from being the instigators of this, Teach for America and EdX are just one group of educators amongst many – around the world that is – responding to that report.
As the BBC reported last year the idea is that:
Schools can provide opportunities for young people to learn about global development, equip them with the means of accessing and analysing different cultures, help students engage in international and intercultural relations, and foster the value of the diversity of people.
However:
A big part of the problem is that there is no clear definition of what global competence should embrace, and how to make it measurable for educational policy and practice.
The report goes on to explain the OECD’s answer to that problem through a series of questions students could be tested on which include, among other things:
How well can [students] comprehend other people’s thoughts, beliefs and feelings, and see the world from their perspectives?
What are the different approaches to multicultural and global education used in different countries? How are culturally diverse groups of students being taught?
How well are schools challenging cultural and gender biases and stereotypes?
How can receiving countries integrate diverse groups of people and avoid rising extremism and fundamentalism?
Et voilà – here comes a six-week online course to help teachers “blend secondary math instruction with topics such as inequity, poverty, and privilege to transform students into global thinkers and mathematicians.”
To what extent such questions are likely to be eagerly adopted by teachers in the average Saudi-funded Wahhabist Madrassa is hard for anyone to say …
I have occasionally picked up some pocket money by tutoring adults, usually working class ones, in the mathematics they suddenly need either for a job or a GED. (I have a degree in the wretched subject). These people are mostly under thirty.
I was utterly gobsmacked by the way mathematics has been taught for the last 25 years when I started doing this. Leave aside the pedagogical trainwreck that is “friendly numbers”, the primary schools do not even teach the multiplication tables.
Let that sink in for a moment.
I do think there may be a glimmer of hope, however, as a very large number of my former students, upon receiving some traditional math instruction based on drills, repetition, and learning the goddamned multiplication tables have become very angry at the “education” they received in the public school system, and have muttered dark imprecations at a system that would do the same to their own kids.
Check out her CV:
The awards are more impressive
Her PhD thesis did get mentioned in a couple of blogs, which Leibniz himself could not claim, so there is that.
It would appear Professor Herron’s experience with the evils of Cis White Males occurred at universities with a decidedly progressive tilt. Perhaps she should venture into the hinterlands to my son’s STEM university wherein he’s a math major. His university is about 2/3 male and of the students in the math department the ratio is 8:2 in favor of males. Yet, the two most favored and respected professors–because they can actually teach the material–are 60+ year old ladies, one of whom hails from the subcontinent.
Denied Awards and Recognition
She doesn’t strike me as someone naturally inclined to stoicism or gratitude. And I doubt that she’ll ever consider the possibility that her own charmless posturing and sour attitude might be related to any disappointments in her life as a cause, not an effect.