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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: Altura Ct.

I always suspected algebra was racist, and this report confirms my suspicion.

Burn algebra to the ground, baby!


21 posted on 09/16/2014 5:13:30 PM PDT by SharpRightTurn (White, black, and red all over--America's affirmative action, metrosexual president.)
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To: RightGeek

“I hearded grass.” and that is all that needs to be said about the mentality.


22 posted on 09/16/2014 5:13:33 PM PDT by Darksheare (Try my coffee! First one's free..... Even robots will kill for it!)
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To: Altura Ct.

As I said before...time to give them some land and no cash..let them live in the jungle by jungle law.


23 posted on 09/16/2014 5:13:48 PM PDT by Dallas59
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To: Altura Ct.
"Math has traditionally been seen as the domain of old, White men"

Spoken like the racist trash that make up the leftist self-styled "Culturally Responsive Teaching Teach For America."

24 posted on 09/16/2014 5:14:12 PM PDT by Carl Vehse
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To: sushiman

Asian countries don’t have the anchor of 60 million Blacks and Mexicans.


25 posted on 09/16/2014 5:14:13 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: Altura Ct.

Forget the “war on Women”, this is the “War on Logic”.


26 posted on 09/16/2014 5:14:32 PM PDT by gorush (History repeats itself because human nature is static)
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To: MeganC

Right. If the premise is true then why do we hire so many mathemeticians from India and China?


If I’m not mistaken, much of our modern day “math” came from the Greeks.


27 posted on 09/16/2014 5:15:25 PM PDT by Rides_A_Red_Horse (Why do you need a fire extinguisher when you can call the fire department?)
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To: MeganC
Math is ‘the domain of old, white men’

So?

What is the domain of professional basketball?

28 posted on 09/16/2014 5:15:42 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Thank you for self-censoring.)
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To: oldbrowser

“Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.” -Galileo Galilei


29 posted on 09/16/2014 5:16:46 PM PDT by Darksheare (Try my coffee! First one's free..... Even robots will kill for it!)
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To: Altura Ct.

Hmmmmm.....the domain of old, white men, you say? Well, why then do so many Chinese and Asian Indians excel at it? Ever look into an engineering program at the college and masters programs level? I need an interpreter to understand what the students are asking. Just sayin’.


30 posted on 09/16/2014 5:16:57 PM PDT by john drake (Lucius Accius-Roman,170 BC - "oderint dum metuant" translated "Let them hate so long as they fear")
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To: Da Coyote

The irony is that the white kids are also pretty dumb when it comes to math, scuence, and engineering. Those fields are asian now.


31 posted on 09/16/2014 5:17:11 PM PDT by sagar
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To: Altura Ct.




32 posted on 09/16/2014 5:18:16 PM 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.
Like, you know Dude, math is HARD!

And millenials don't like us making fun of them....

33 posted on 09/16/2014 5:18:25 PM PDT by doorgunner69
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To: Red in Blue PA

Just zero, numerals and al jabr.


34 posted on 09/16/2014 5:19:10 PM PDT by sagar
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To: Red in Blue PA

Yes, the concept of “zero” was originally Arabic. I think the word itself is Arabic. That is why it was ironic to me that the site of the World Trade Center came to be called “Ground Zero”. Just my opinion.


35 posted on 09/16/2014 5:19:34 PM PDT by HandyDandy (Started out with Burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff....)
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To: Darksheare


36 posted on 09/16/2014 5:22:41 PM 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.
the premise that 2 + 2 = 4 is “naive.”

George Orwell was possibly the greatest visionary who ever lived. He predicted this in 1984 (as he predicted so much else about the insanity that is liberalism) when Winston Smith was taught to "see" that if the party says 2+2=5, then indeed, 2+2=5. After the appropriate amount of torture, Winston Smith actually "saw" 5 fingers when his "teacher" held up 2 on each hand.

37 posted on 09/16/2014 5:23:18 PM PDT by samtheman
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To: HandyDandy; Red in Blue PA

0 comes via the Arab world from India.


38 posted on 09/16/2014 5:23:25 PM PDT by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto!)
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To: Darksheare
“Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.” -Galileo Galilei

Thanks Darksheare

39 posted on 09/16/2014 5:23:27 PM PDT by oldbrowser (We have a rogue government in Washington)
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To: Chode

Must be learning polynomials.


40 posted on 09/16/2014 5:23:38 PM PDT by Darksheare (Try my coffee! First one's free..... Even robots will kill for it!)
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