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Teacher group: Math is ‘the domain of old, white men’
EAG ^ | 9/12/2014

Posted on 09/16/2014 5:02:58 PM PDT by Altura Ct.

According to a Teach for America website, culturally responsive teaching in math is important because “math has traditionally been seen as the domain of old, White men.”

white privilege and prejudiceAs reported earlier this week, Teach for America groups across the country are committing themselves to “culturally responsive teaching,” a radical pedagogy used by communist Bill Ayers and other blatant anti-American indoctrinators.

The site, Culturally Responsive Teaching, Teach for America, says that because math is seen as a domain for old, white men, many students cannot identify with it. Therefore, educators should find ways to relate math to the lives of their students.

Judging from the math curriculum recommended, this TFA group, like all other social justice educators, wants minorities to believe that what relates most to their lives in America is racism and oppression.

For example, the site recommends “Critically Conscious Mathematics” and “Radical Math.”

Radical Math was created by educator Jonathan Osler several years ago while teaching at El Puenta Academy in New Jersey. Osler taught Radical Math along-side Cathy Wilkerson, a former member of the Weather Underground Organization (with Bill Ayers) who once participated in a plot to detonate a nail bomb at a dance for military personnel at Fort Dix.

Radical Math provides hundreds of social justice math lessons obviously meant to indoctrinate. For example, lesson titles include “Sweatshop Accounting,” “Racism and Stop and Frisk,” “When Equal Isn’t Fair,” “The Square Root of a Fair Share” and “Home Buying While Brown or Black.”

Today, Osler is director of the San Francisco Teacher Residency, a teacher training and job placement program created by the San Francisco Unified School District and Common Core assessment creator and validation committee member, Linda Darling-Hammond.

Astonishingly, in proudly promoting ‘cultural competence’ and ‘critical consciousness’ in education, the TFA website’s home page links to a Wikipedia definition of critical consciousness that describes it as a concept developed by Paulo Freire and grounded in post-Marxist critical theory.

As recently reported, the site also contains letters from 5th grade students asking text publisher Houghton Mifflin why they did not include in their textbook the fact that Christopher Columbus ‘burned, slayed and hanged’ Native Americans who would not find gold for him.

In keeping with their racism-of-evil-white-men theme, the site uses a story, involving racism against African Americans, of course, to suggest that the idea that math is neutral, rational, and logical is a myth and the premise that 2 + 2 = 4 is “naive.”

Here’s the story:

… a European explorer (presumably Francis Galton, the man who invented eugenics) agrees to trade an African shepherd two sticks of tobacco in exchange for one sheep. When he offers four sticks of tobacco in exchange for two sheep, however, the shepherd declines; the explorer later tells this story as evidence of the shepherd’s inability to comprehend simple mathematical reasoning and as “proof” of intellectual inferiority on the African subcontinent. But, if sheep are not standardized units, as there is no reason to believe them to be, then doesn’t it make sense that the second sheep might be worth far more than the first? And then doesn’t our premise of 2 + 2 = 4 look awfully naive?

If Teach for America, as a whole, does not agree with the content of this particular website that bears its name, now would be a good time to say so. Although TFA’s reputation has not been stellar as of late, the ideals and methods expressed in this particular website are beyond fringe, not to mention senseless.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: arth
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To: Eddie01

>> I thought Islam invented it.

No, the “Great Works” was plagiarized from the materials Arabs seized primarily from a fallen Alexandria.


81 posted on 09/16/2014 5:53:12 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Altura Ct.
educators should find ways to relate math to the lives of their students.

If Javarian'te abandoned the two babies he fathered with Vulvalitis, 3 babies with Sylvanaqua and two more babies with Dareal'yst how many more babies dos he need to father to make a dozen?

(Hint a dozen is twelve)


82 posted on 09/16/2014 5:54:58 PM PDT by Iron Munro ("If you want to test a man's character, give him power." -- Abraham Lincoln)
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To: Red in Blue PA

They didn’t even invent zero. 2000 years before the pedophile invented a religion, the Egyptian were using the concept of zero.


83 posted on 09/16/2014 5:55:01 PM PDT by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)
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To: Carl Vehse

“”The first recorded zero appeared in Mesopotamia around 3 B.C. “

The last Zero .... never mind. The Obama jokes are getting old.


84 posted on 09/16/2014 5:56:02 PM PDT by TexasGator
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To: Altura Ct.

That’s funny....

Two of the smartest people I’ve met in my life were also very good when it came to mathematics.

One of them was a male, but he was black. He had a Ph.D in Quantum Physics.

the other was a female and she was half-Japanese, half-Israeli. She switched from an engineering degree to a math degree and ended up graduating with a 4.0 GPA from Ohio State.

I’m sure there are plenty of other examples that completely belie this stupid assertion from the terrorists Bill Ayers and his group of idiots.


85 posted on 09/16/2014 5:56:27 PM PDT by MikefromOhio
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To: cdcdawg

I don’t know how I could do my job without math, but then of course, I am an old white feller.


86 posted on 09/16/2014 5:57:12 PM PDT by umgud (I couldn't understand why the ball kept getting bigger......... then it hit me.)
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To: TexasGator

Originally known as “the wheel”.


87 posted on 09/16/2014 5:57:23 PM PDT by Eddie01 (Liberals lie about everything all the time.)
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To: OneWingedShark
I loved Donald in Mathmagic Land when I was in sixth grade. Saw it once in school, and tried to draw by hand some of the scenes in it for weeks after.
88 posted on 09/16/2014 5:58:26 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Thank you for self-censoring.)
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To: Altura Ct.
Math photo: math BasicMath.jpg
89 posted on 09/16/2014 5:58:57 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: Altura Ct.

So many “educators” are a**es.


90 posted on 09/16/2014 5:58:59 PM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: Iron Munro

” If Javarian’te abandoned the two babies he fathered with Vulvalitis, 3 babies with Sylvanaqua and two more babies with Dareal’yst how many more babies dos he need to father to make a dozen?

(Hint a dozen is twelve)”


Oh, you are baaaad. :-)

.


91 posted on 09/16/2014 5:59:26 PM PDT by Mears
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To: Steely Tom

It was really pretty well done.
I remember it from an old VHS cassette that my family got.... for Christmas?


92 posted on 09/16/2014 6:00:46 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: oldbrowser

Someone once said that math is the language of the universe......................................... It took us to the moon, and to the planets. It was a mathematic formula that propelled us in the liquid space. Folks, there is math and there is “Math”. The Math Teacher group wants “Math for Dummies”?


93 posted on 09/16/2014 6:02:50 PM PDT by Bringbackthedraft (Hillary or Warren 2016! Why? Just to have a woman for Historical Purpose?? At least pick a looker!)
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To: Altura Ct.

Just wait till they run out of White men. They’ll really be screwed.


94 posted on 09/16/2014 6:03:41 PM PDT by rbg81
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To: Altura Ct.

I think this writer means that math is the domain of everyone but those who wear hoodies.


95 posted on 09/16/2014 6:06:26 PM PDT by RoosterRedux
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To: HandyDandy

Wrong. Hindu.


96 posted on 09/16/2014 6:06:44 PM PDT by Fred Hayek (The Democratic Party is now the operational arm of the CPUSA)
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To: Altura Ct.

Just another Marxist cliche to justify Marxism.


97 posted on 09/16/2014 6:07:31 PM PDT by bray (Read: Republic of Texas 2022)
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To: Altura Ct.

Less competitors. ..Epic...


98 posted on 09/16/2014 6:07:42 PM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
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To: Altura Ct.

Like Africa is such a hotspot of math and science.


99 posted on 09/16/2014 6:09:06 PM PDT by CodeToad (Romney is a raisin cookie looking for chocolate chip cookie votes.)
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To: Altura Ct.

Funny...teachers in China,Japan,Germany and elsewhere say the very same thing. /s


100 posted on 09/16/2014 6:09:23 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Islamopobia:The Irrational Fear Of Being Beheaded)
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