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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: expat_panama; Wyatt's Torch; 1010RD
This is outrageous! Folks (of all colors, religions and cultures) have to study, practice and then study some more. Period!

From a link buried in the posted article:

Math has traditionally been seen as the domain of old, White men, and when students cannot identify with mathematics—with role models who have been successful in math or with reasons that math matters to them and their lives—it becomes harder to stay motivated, particularly in secondary mathematics when the content leaves the easy applicability of grocery stores and bank accounts and becomes significantly more abstract.

141 posted on 09/16/2014 9:16:47 PM PDT by Chgogal (Obama "hung the SEALs out to dry, basically exposed them like a set of dog balls..." CMH)
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To: Conservative4Ever
"Without math his ya gonna know the balance on your ebt card?"

Betcha the techique is just keep using it until they hand it back and say "full".

Why balance something you never need to pay off?

"Swipe yo EBT, it's free!"

142 posted on 09/16/2014 9:17:34 PM PDT by doorgunner69
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To: Altura Ct.

Idiocy. Numbers do not discriminate. If you do not correctly calculate the escape velocity of your orbital vehicle, the laws of physics and thermodynamics will not give one whit for your gender or race.


143 posted on 09/16/2014 11:18:15 PM PDT by brothers4thID (Be professional, be courteous, and have a plan to kill everyone in the room.)
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To: Altura Ct.

But....but.....I thought the Muzzies invented Math.


144 posted on 09/16/2014 11:30:36 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Altura Ct.

Let them think it. They will end up where they belong.


145 posted on 09/17/2014 2:20:13 AM PDT by AdaGray
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To: dr_lew
Philosophy is written in this grand book which stands continually open to our eyes (I mean the universe), but can not be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and know the characters [ in which it ] is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which [ means it ] is humanly impossible to understand a word; without these one is wandering in a dark labyrinth.
Thanks for that little reminder that language is more like wave than water. Deep thoughts were generated.

Freedom ≠ Free Stuff☭
I, for one, welcome our new Cybernetic Overlords /.
Mash Dobbshead® for HTML, bop Hello_Cthlhu for XAMPP

146 posted on 09/17/2014 2:39:00 AM PDT by Mycroft Holmes (The fool is always greater than the proof.)
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To: Altura Ct.
Therefore, educators should find ways to relate math to the lives of their students.

"Yo, if Latreetus has ten caps in each mag and he has three mags how many caps he got?"

Not too hard...

147 posted on 09/17/2014 2:40:08 AM PDT by raybbr (Obamacare needs a death panel.)
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To: Mears
I think the real question is how many more women he needs to screw. But, taking into account the randomness of fertility, day of the month, temperature, etc. it becomes a fairly complex algorithm. (Yeah - I'm an old white guy).
148 posted on 09/17/2014 2:51:59 AM PDT by 21twelve (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts 2013 is 1933 REBORN)
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To: gop4lyf

I was just talking to a guy that is probably a genius. He said he was very rambunctious as a kid. He had one teacher that realized his need for activity. If he started squirming in class:

“Johnny. Why don’t you run around the entire playground as fast as you can - I’ll time you and we can use it in our lesson.”

Just fill them up with drugs to quiet them down now.

Thanks for keeping up the fight. We continue to have issues with high-school math teachers passing out the work sheet, the teacher saying “work on these together”, and then she goes sits at her computer. My daughter saw her shopping for clothes one time! (Good neighborhood too). We have complained, but it is the new “learning style of Discovery math”.

I used to say these bad teachers should be hanged. Treason against America. I have stopped saying that, as my kids were at first aghast - but now agree. (Well, sort of.) I have backed off to a more reasonable tar and feathering approach.

My one daughter takes an additional math helps class. She was saying today that “It’s really sad when I’m the smartest kid in the room! I mean, a lot of these kids can’t do simple multiplication. How are they supposed to figure out algebra? Especially when in the main class the teachers just hand out worksheets!?”

It’s going to be another long year for their somewhat math oriented dad. (An old white guy!)


149 posted on 09/17/2014 3:03:55 AM PDT by 21twelve (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2185147/posts 2013 is 1933 REBORN)
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To: 21twelve

We homeschooled our daughter all the way through school. I taught her Geometry, which primarily teaches logic. Even in areas she might be weak in, she is usually able to reason her way through problems.

Her logic skills continue to help her get through life now that she is a grown woman. I have a great deal of personal satisfaction about all of that.


150 posted on 09/17/2014 3:17:51 AM PDT by savedbygrace (But God!)
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To: doorgunner69
same here, never planned on a career that required self abuse... even if i am a hands on type of guy
151 posted on 09/17/2014 4:53:43 AM PDT by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -vvv- NO Pity for the LAZY - 86-44)
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To: Altura Ct.

Bookmarked. As an example of stupidity and mass cultural depravity in the university system.


152 posted on 09/17/2014 5:35:30 AM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: Carl Vehse

Zero reached western Europe in the 12th century.”

And hit Washington DC in 2009...


153 posted on 09/17/2014 5:41:20 AM PDT by Adder (No, Mr. Franklin, we could NOT keep it.)
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To: Altura Ct.

154 posted on 09/17/2014 5:45:45 AM PDT by Daffynition ("We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men")
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To: Altura Ct.; metmom; Clintonfatigued

Thank God my eldest son (who just happens to be “brown skinned”) was homeschooled. No one ever told him he wasn’t supposed to excel in math.

Instead, he was told that he was expected to excel in math.

Higher standards do work.


155 posted on 09/17/2014 10:23:59 AM PDT by Tired of Taxes
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To: Objective Scrutator

LOL.


156 posted on 09/17/2014 10:26:58 AM PDT by Tired of Taxes
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