They won't stop until we stop them
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“Good guesses” fell out of favor in maritime navigation long ago — would Gates hire a proponent of that “skill” as his pilot?
Bill Gates hands over a giant check to fund the “no wrong answer” anti-math push in our aschools
As reported by Campus Reform, the Gates Foundation has contributed $1 million to local governments and major universities in order inject “antiracism” into math.
The effort is called “A Pathway to Equitable Instruction.”
From the official website:
A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction is an integrated approach to mathematics that centers Black, Latinx*, and Multilingual students in grades 6-8, addresses barriers to math equity, and aligns instruction to grade-level priority standards. The Pathway offers guidance and resources for educators to use now as they plan their curriculum, while also offering opportunities for ongoing self-reflection as they seek to develop an anti-racist math practice. The toolkit “strides” serve as multiple on-ramps for educators as they navigate the individual and collective journey from equity to antiracism.
* “Latinix” — say no more.
UCLA Law Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw offers more:
“Antiracism is the active dismantling of systems, privileges, and everyday practices that reinforce and normalize the contemporary dimensions of white dominance. This, of course, also involves a critical understanding of the history of whiteness in America.”
How do they intend to accomplish that?
Like this:
“The framework for deconstructing racism in mathematics offers essential characteristics of antiracist math educators and critical approaches to dismantling white supremacy in math classrooms by making visible the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture,” it explains.
The guide insists teachers should “not require every student to follow the exact same path to the right answer.”
Here’s why:
The child of immigrants* might have learned a different way to solve a problem because that’s how their parents were taught where they grew up. If we just tell that student their way is the wrong way, we risk turning them off to math for life. If we take the opportunity to explore why there are different ways to approach the same problem, it can be a learning moment for the entire class.
*My guess is that the child of immigrants is probably eager to master (“primary” math?) math and doesn't want to be consigned to a lifetime of innumeracy. Besides, our native Black population, which is what these assaults on learning are all about, was born here; indeed, if you listen to the proponents of this stuff, they’ve been here since 1619.
What, actually, is “right answer”, and should it matter? No. Not for people whom Microsoft would never hire.
White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when…
There is a greater focus on getting the “right” answer than understanding concepts and reasoning.
Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict. Some math problems may have more than one right answer and some may not have a solution at all… [W]hen the focus is only on getting the right answer, the complexity of the mathematical concepts and reasoning may be underdeveloped, missing opportunities for deep learning.
[M]ost math problems have correct answers [I smell a whiff of white supremacy here] but sometimes there can be more than one way to interpret a problem, especially word problems, leading to more than one possible right answer.
Further assignments:
Center Ethnomathematics
Recognize the ways that communities of color engage in mathematics and problem solving in their everyday lives [the effect of fluctuating fentanyl supply on price and demand?] Identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.
It’s not ironic, it’s cynical, that the man who made billions using the math skills of his employees, a man who has repeatedly travelled to Washington to lobby for the elimination of limits on the H-B1 visas so that he can bring in more foreign-educated workers who can add and subtract, should be encouraging a program that will further reduce the supply of numerate Americans who might demand a living wage. “Cheaper by the Indian dozen”, says he, and he doesn’t mean chicken feather Indians.
