Weighting for Lefty

Math conferences aren't typically hotbeds of controversy. But add a Harvard-trained civil rights philosopher, a notorious Weather Underground fugitive, and a clutch of young, idealistic math teachers, and you have a banner-waving radical math convention—not to mention a formula for backlash.

Creating Balance in an Unjust World, slated for April 27 through 29 in Brooklyn, is fronted by hotshot lefty math icons Bob Moses—founder of the Algebra Project, a math program for inner-city and rural students—and Bank Street College of Education adjunct professor Cathy Wilkerson, who's fortunately not teaching chemistry. (In 1970, Wilkerson and a pack of fellow Weather Underground radicals inadvertently blew up her father's West 11th Street brownstone—and killed three fellow Weathermen—with homemade bombs intended for the Columbia University library.)

Bank Street College of Education adjunct professor Cathy Wilkerson

It still stuns me that this piece of garbage is even an adjunct, and at a school of education, no less. I was living in NYC when she and her spoiled-brat Marxist buddies blew up their townhouse, and I remember that people in New York were genuinely, with good reason, afraid of what the Weathermen and related groups were going to do next.

But then, being a leftist means never having to say you're sorry. And never having to serve much jail time or work flipping burgers for the rest of your life once you get out. You're home free if you're a leftie.

Actually, this might be a good thing:

“The convention will even include mathematical deconstructions of Barbie. Swapna Mukhopadhyay, a professor at Portland State University, will lead a workshop on teaching students how to analyze Barbie’s cartoonish proportions. Mukhopadhyay says students will learn about “body size . . . body-image and self-worth issues, eating disorders, multicultural issues . . . media domination, labor issues, etc.”

For starters, nothing interested me more in high school than large-breasted girls, so analyzing Barbie while thinking about what’s-her-name two seats over might just impress me with the necessity of school.

The other positive thing coming out of something like this is that teachers who rant, rave, and prosletyze in the classroom are usually the ones who most turn off student learning. (I’m in my sixth year teaching high school English, so I’ve seen this from the inside.) A ranting leftist will leave the students with a dull sense of disgust for the subject of Marxism, leftist doggerel, and multiculturalism in general. Think about the influence of Marxist dogma on generations of Soviet students; after a few decades, the entire culture understood that the system was a sham, even though they had to go through the motions to advance. The style of teaching proposed here is sure to create classrooms filled with young men and women who will grow up to despise and hate the ideology shoved down their throats.

In my observation of students (from a minority group and from impoverished backgrounds) leads me to believe that most will consider the lessons mentioned in the story as empty. Students tend to respect teachers who are focused on learning and achievement in a structured atmosphere free from coercion - either from the paddle or the teacher who grades you according to his opinion. These teachers are getting good coverage from their fellow travelers at The Village Voice, but I can’t imagine the students being anything but bored or disgusted.

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