Rethinking Mathematics review

Rethinking Mathematics offered an interesting array of math lesson plans that were created with a social justice mindset. We thought the introduction was particularly effective in providing background information about the many relations between math and the many inequalities, oppression and exceptionalism present in our world.

In the second section of the book we were given a variety of detailed accounts from practicing and experienced teachers. Their honesty exposed the downfalls and successes of their lessons.

We felt that the lessons were effective in teaching the students about cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds that differed from their own.

Topics from the final section of the book revealed how teachers from different content areas could incorporate social justice math into their curriculum and pedagogy as well.

This book should be an essential for math teachers, especially those in elementary, middle and early high school, because it offers creative ways of incorporating social justice into a subject that on the surface appears to be unrelated. However, we all agreed that the book should qualify that such social justice/math lessons should be implemented sparingly to avoid overwhelming students and losing their attention.

Homosexuality in the classroom

For this week we read  an article titled “Lesbian: I use math class to teach young kids about homosexuality so I can ‘hide’ it from parents”. The article can be found at https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/lesbian-i-use-math-class-to-teach-young-kids-about-homosexuality-so-i-can-h . The article focuses on Alicia Gunn, an elementary public school teacher in Ontario. Alicia also happens to be an open lesbian. Gunn has received much notice for the way that she openly teaches about homosexuality in her classroom. She has received backlash as well as numerous awards for her teaching methods. She uses the fact that she teaches numerous social justice issues to save her from any accusations that she focuses on homosexuality. She incorporates open discussion about these social issues with deep analysis of rates, graphs, and charts. For Gunn social justice shouldn’t just be present on one day a year but on every day.

Next week we have decided to read chapter 21 from rethinking mathematics entitled “The square root of a fair share”.

This chapter focuses on teaching students about square roots by using real life examples that focus on their future aspirations at home.

Revealing inequalities through research and math

Our reading this week proposed a lesson plan that allowed students analyze statistics unveiling the inequity behind “success” within schools. Through this project students were able to see first hand that research and statistics can be used to discuss relevant and meaningful issues. It intended to convince students of the power of math in relation to students across the nation as well as their unique stories as well.

What we found most interesting about this piece is the way it concluded. The teacher supported the analysis of broad school inequities yet she didn’t want to address such issues within her own school. This inevitably would have brought about discussions that the teacher was for whatever reason unwilling or unable to facilitate. This opposes what we’ve been taught in EDUC 533 this semester, to not be afraid to discuss social justice issues in any content area.

For next week we’ve chosen to read an article written by a teacher that’s not afraid, but rather been inspired to address social justice concerns through math. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/lesbian-i-use-math-class-to-teach-young-kids-about-homosexuality-so-i-can-h

Math as Social Justice

This chapter focused on a problem based learning activity that involved determining whether racism was a factor in home buying. The students had to analyze different things such as socioeconomic backgrounds and other factors such as how much collateral a family has to determine whether or not racism was a direct factor in allowing for loans or subjected to historical racism that cause certain racial groups to be in the situation they are now. The author talks about how students wrote in their final essays that they were talking about these topics outside of class. How do we get the students so involved that they talk outside of class about different topics?

For this coming week we have found a video that relates to our book. Dr. Cherkowski talks about math and how that connects to social justice. Here is the link: http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Math-as-Social-Justice-Gina-Che

Jennifer White: A Current Math Teacher’s Ramblings

Good Morning Future Teachers,

My name is Jennifer White and I am a graduate of NC State University (go Wolfpack!) with a BS in Mathematics, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, and a graduate of the Duke University MAT program. I taught Common Core Math 1, AP Calculus, IB Math SL, and PreCalculus in Durham Public Schools for 2 years at Hillside New Tech and Hillside High Schools before moving to the Triad and teaching at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts High School Program in Winston-Salem, NC. I have bounced back and forth from full-scale implementation of the Project-Based Learning curriculum to a scaled back combination of Problem-Based learning with a hint of direct instruction over my teaching career and have been asked to provide some insight into implementation of both in a math classroom. But before I  go on, I’ll let you in on a secret, I still don’t know which works best for my students, I think it is going to be a career-long decision that changes from year to year.

Let me elaborate, I had the pleasure of teaching in a Project-Based School in Durham. Every class that students took was centered around week-long projects, so the full-scale Project Based mathematical classroom worked, for the most part, in that setting. It was my first year of teaching, and I was unaware of all the free resources available out there for math teachers to steal borrow for their classroom. So I, foolishly, thought I could make up every project we’d ever do on my own. Now, were they the best projects the world had ever seen, obviously not. But did they engage my students and cause them to reflect on the world around them? For the most part, yes. I had my CCM1 students take a career placement test that would give them an idea of potential careers that are out there related to things that interest to explore. They had to pick a career, research the salary, create a monthly budget (phone, apartment, car, health insurance, and food) and determine if they were living within their means. I threw a few curve balls at them in the process: a broken foot, a flat tire, needing a new water-heater–real life events that can cause real life hardship for a working young adult that they needed to fit into their budgeting. The project lasted 2 weeks, they learned how to represent their monthly budgeting with linear equations. We didn’t talk about social issues because I was an overwhelmed first year teacher teaching an EOC course. I HAD to get through the content!! Right? 

Fast forward through my second year of teaching, at a new school without the Project-Based focus in a PreCalculus classroom. I tried a full scale project in which students were researching the use of “green technologies” to not only save people money, but help protect the non-renewable resources we have here on Earth. We were learning about conic sections and I knew that you can build a really efficient solar oven using a parabolic structure. I had built them while serving in Peru as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a site with diminishing wood reserves (the main source of fuel for cooking). My Peruvian site thought they were the most amazing thing in the world….The project fell flat. My student did not share the Peruvian enthusiasm. The project flopped for a few reasons that hindsight has allowed me to see (at the time I was just mad/sad/frustrated/needed a tub of ice cream):

• To respond on the question asked by njcorbet: the project was meaningful to me, not to my students. I was the one who had to carry thorn-covered tree limbs 2 hours down a mountain to provide my wood for cooking, not my students. Some of my students came from households with food insecurities, they were not interested in how to save the environment/ cook a hotdog in class, they were more interested in what the cafeteria was serving for lunch.
• We did the project in November. The worst time of year in Durham, NC to try and get the sun to help you out by cooking a hotdog. Had the project been done in June when you could had cooked the thing on the sidewalk…well they might have been at least more entertained.
• I rushed through the material so that I could prepare a group of students who are not sued to projects in a math class, to complete a project in a math class. Don’t rush. It only frustrates you and causes your students to loose faith in the direction you are taking them. If you have to force a project, it is a project not worth doing.

Currently, I’m going on my fourth year of teaching. I’m still trying to figure out what works best for my students in terms of finding the balance between Projects, Problems, and Direct Instruction. I haven’t found the answer, but I’m starting to find what works best for most of my students. Here at UNCSA they like problems — shorter period long mini projects if you will. These problems reflect the material we are currently working on and have them working with groups and researching online to find extra material.

With the election season upon us, and my AFM students being in a Statistics unit, it was a wonderful day when I came across the Donald Trump quote:

I quite literally jumped for joy on the sofa, scrapped my plan for teaching “How to Argue with Data” and came up with a completely new task for the day. I asked my students the question, “How do you think unemployment measured?” Blank stares. “No seriously, if you had to pick a method for measuring unemployment, what would it be?” Students threw out a few quick ideas, I write them all down as they say them, no matter how weird/outlandish they might be:

• Find the number of people not currently working a 40 hour a week job.
• We can’t count the people in college.
• So are we using the census?
• How old do you have to be to work a 40 hour a week job?
• What is a full time job? How is it different than a part time? What’s the definition of a part time job, because I think I read that a 39 hour a week deal is still part time?
• Who is Donald Trump?
• Does being a student count as working?

You get the idea, we then go through and answer the “easy” ones. The questions that don’t need the mathematics we are currently learning to answer them. I explain who Donald Trump was (a famous business man currently running as a Republican candidate for President), clarified that we would in fact be using census data to answer the question, and that we needed to decide the answer the the remaining questions as a class.

So we did. We determined we couldn’t count anyone under 16 (because they should be in school), we were not going to count college students and trade school students, part time employees we defined as someone working strictly less than 40 hours a week, and that we can’t include retired people (they said anyone over 65 we’d rule out). So I sent them to http://www.census.gov/easystats/ a site we had used to create data tables in class. They got an answer, and found unemployment to be approximately 12%, not the 42% that Trump claimed. A few groups who arrived to the conclusion earlier made up a meme poster of Donald Trump looking an awful lot like Grump Cat with the quote “he lies!” across it (did I mention I teach at a school filled with Visual Artists?). Unfortunately it let the room before I got a picture of it…

We then looked over everyone’s conclusions and had a wonderful discussion on why a political party would choose to interpret the data that way (and how you can manipulate the same set of data to get a higher number). The argument landed on:

Who ever is currently holding office will use the [census unemployment] data to tell the story that they have improved the US’s rankings for unemployment because it makes them look good. Anyone who is on the other [political] side will argue the larger [unemployment] percentage because it makes the current people in charge look like they haven’t done any work towards improving it.

Yes! That is how we argue with data! That is the point of this whole unit! I was in teacher heaven.

Why this task worked well for my students:

• Most students in my AFM class are in either Civics or AP GoPo, so they had the background knowledge on how America runs (or doesn’t at times).
• Most of my students have social media accounts and were aware of the comment Trump made (the student who asked who he was is an international student…she didn’t know our political system at times can look a lot like Reality TV).
• Students LOVE to argue. It is in their nature to compare things. While they’d rather it be comparing musicians or actors (I teach at an arts school), comparing political parties isn’t too far off from comparing the East Coast and West Coast rap scene.
• It was an open ended task, students created the criteria for completion. I just stood there and smiled, nodded, and wrote down what they agreed on. The only things that I brought to the table: the quote and the knowledge of where to find the needed information on the internet. The kids did the rest of the work and analysis.

And in one class period, 60 minutes of my students time, we learned more about How to Lie With Statistics (I mean how to interpret, compare, and describe statistics) than I could have ever dreamed of through direct instruction. Not only that, I heard through the teacher grape-vine that they then cited our research in their AP American Government and Politics class when discussing political leanings on domestic issues such as unemployment, taxes, and big business. I’ve found these types of problems–the short and student motivated questions where they can find the answers, work best in my classroom. At least my classroom here at UNCSA.

The thing I’ve learned the most in these past 4 years is don’t do it alone. There is a world filled with good math teachers using good materials in their classroom. Take advantage of that fact. I stole borrowed the Trump quote from Twitter. I belong to a group of math teachers who all strive for a world of open source teaching material. Freebie lesson plans, critiques, and resources that we all put out there on the web. Sharing is caring style if you will. So if you don’t have a twitter account, get one and then follow the Math Twitter Blog-o-Sphere (#MTBoS). The Trump quote was posted with the comment “man, if only I taught stats, this would be a great task.” And it was!

Another great resource is the #MathChat on Twitter where people post questions, concerns, and ideas on current math topics and curriculum. Follow me, I’ll show you some good people to start following (@JWhiteClassroom) to get you started stealing borrowing. I’m new to the blogging portion of the #MTBoS, but I’ve been stalking the conversation for 3 years, go ahead, you should to. Stalking is encouraged, just provide feedback on anything you steal borrow.

I’ve also gotten an invite for you all to claim a free one month account to Mathalicious, an online membership account filled with Project- and Problem-based learning tasks and activities. They all come with a teacher’s guide (with answers), interactive slides and data tables for you to use with your class, and student worksheets. Let me know if you want to sign up for the free month membership, Twitter connected me with the right people to get you signed up (have I convinced you to get a Twitter account yet?).

Rethinking Mathematics PLC: Episode 3

Our readings for this week were based on the intersection between mathematics and race.

In the first reading, “Rethinking Mathematics and Its Intersection with Race” we read the transcribed dialogue of Danny Martin by Eric Gutstein. One of the interesting things we noticed was how he related learning math to freed slaves, who wanted to learn math lest they be cheated. The idea of not being cheated was also important for sixth graders as well. We felt it was brave to use ex-slave narratives in the math class, but also noted how we thought this was an important step in reaching different people in the class. We agree with the idea of critical self-reflection as an important aspect in improving as a teacher.

In the second section, “Race, Retrenchment, and Reform of School Mathematics”, one of the main ideas was how teaching math needs to be connected to the lives and experiences of African American students to enable them to do well in society and take full part in democracy. This involves being aware of the dominant culture and noting that not all students have the same background at home. Many times, the class is taught under the ideas of a white-dominant society which ignores those of other cultures. We also realized that we need to be careful as educators to notice how state-wide test can hold implicit assumptions about the test takers, and we need to attempt to help make the test better understood by all the students who take it.

Key Questions:

How do you think the ideas of math and race intersect, and how does this affect the classroom?
How can you teach in a way that everyone feels involved and appreciated in the lesson?

Our reading for next week focuses on teaching mathematics for racial justice.

Redefining Mathematics PLC Blog Post #2

Chapter five starts off with four main points of criticalmathematical literacy. We found it interesting how she relates mathematical and political knowledge. For example, how being critical of the statistics you are seeing can influence your opinion on a topic. Also, mathematics can expose biases across the world and in the classroom. She uses the example of the two kids stacking blocks to see who has a taller tower. This exposed the boy’s gender bias “that boys always do better or have more than girls.” (pg. 33)

Chapter seven follows a beginning teacher and her experience with social justice in mathematics. She would ask questions to get a viewpoint from the students about what they thought mathematics was in the real world. She found that students were more interested in problems that pertained to their own life and not so much about topics that they have no connection to. If students do not understand mathematics, they are limited in their role as a active member of society. Not only should examples relate to them, but they should be applicable to their lives.

Have you found that students engage more with problems that are meaningful to them?

How do you respond to “Why do I need to know this?”

What do you think about the four points from Chapter 5?

Have you had instances where social justice issues are discussed in your math class?

For next week we will read chapters 4 and 6. These will highlight the intersection of math and race.

Rethinking Mathematics PLC #1

This past week we read chapters 1-3 of “Rethinking Mathematics, Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers.” These chapters focused on teaching math “across the curriculum” as well as the historical, cultural and social implications of the field of mathematics.

While science and math are commonly associated, our reading emphasized the significance of math in many subjects and aspects of life. This only reinforced our mission statement from the previous week. In history, numbers are essential in portraying dates, population statistics and general trends. Statistics provide concrete evidence of past and present inequality issues, such as biased media representation and unequal job distribution among different genders and races. Through the suggested activities, students are given first-hand exposure to how vital and fascinating math can be in the real world.

In the third chapter we’re presented with the account of a dedicated math teacher who guided a small group of girls in using math to convince administrative officials that their (prominently Latino) school should not be closed down. At the end of the process, the girls were left feeling accomplished and appreciative of math. This is the mentality we hope to instill in our future students through engaging activities like the ones suggested in the first two chapters. It’s inevitable that students who are enthusiastic about the subject will learn more.

As practicing teachers what initiatives have you taken to show the importance of math in everyday life? How have you combined social justice issues with mathematics and it what ways has this proven difficult?

We have assigned ourselves chapters 5 and 7 for the next class. After reading we expect to be able to answer the following questions:

In what ways should we incorporate math into the teaching of modern, global issues? How can we teach these profound topics in an appropriate way that the students cannot only understand but value? What complications should we expect to arise when relating social justice and mathematics?

Welcome to our blog!

Picture created using picmonkey.com. Original image used free from unsplash.com

Welcome to the blog for EDUC 533, Fall 2015: Social Justice in Education. This blog serves as a site for the work of our Professional Learning Communities, or PLCs. The students in our courses are divided into 19 PLCs centered on eight different texts from Rethinking Schools.

Each week, PLCs will engage in conversations about social justice topics related to their professional areas of interest. Practicing teachers have been invited to join in on these conversations, and we encourage your contributions, as well.