MATH UP:
Math as a Vessel for Equity and Social Change
Editor's Note: In an exploration for her pre-calculus class, Zoe E. ('16) jumped at the opportunity to use math an a "different and meaningful light." She used the assignment as a chance to show that math does not have to be inapplicable to students' lives, by blending aspects of social awareness and mathematical concepts.
Part One: Introduction
There’s no denying it; we do not live in a perfect world. Everyday, the number of people incarcerated continues to increase parallel to the number of those unemployed. The temperature of our planet continues to propel us towards assured oblivion. More and more women and girls are sold into sex trafficking. And when these problems do make their way into our schools, they manifest themselves in our English and History classes in the form of engaging discussions, debates, or projects, and completely bypass our Math classes. Math class has been written off as some sort of impractical but necessary aspect of learning that should not be clouded with modern day circumstances. It has been predetermined that the most social justice that Math classes should do to deal with issues of injustice is rename John “Eduardo” or change Jessica to Mira. Why have we done math such an injustice? While math is so valuable for its abstract and impractical applications, it seems absurd that its practical and pertinent uses are often not taught. As Jonathan Osler, founder of RadicalMath so eloquently said, “Who cares if 'Train A goes x+4 times faster than train B' when your community isn't adequately served by public transportation?" Not only can we empower students to think or even take action in relevant social issues, but demonstrate the power of mathematics as a means of that action.
Part Two: Research and Write Up
For my research, I have concentrated heavily on two main sources: RadicalMath and Rethinking Schools. The two sites are undeniably useful, providing both compelling and detailed manifestos on behalf of social justice math; however, meaningful lessons themselves are difficult to find. Of RadicalMath, I found this guide by Jonathan Osler to be particularly convincing: http://www.radicalmath.org/docs/SJMathGuide.pdf. It clearly and powerfully outlines the value of social justice math along with providing a few example lessons (which were the last I could find on the site). The argument for social justice math is truly effective, appealing to ethos, pathos, and logos, and even addressing or creating solutions for potential problems. In Rethinking Schools, I found a couple of interesting resources including the introduction to the book which takes a different approach to preaching social justice math, opening with: “I thought math was just a subject they implanted on us just because they felt like it, but now I realize that you could use math to defend your rights and realize the injustices around you. … [N]ow I think math is truly necessary and, I have to admit it, kinda cool. It’s sort of like a pass you could use to try to make the world a better place. / - Freida, 9th grade, Chicago Public Schools” and followed by, “We agree with Freida.”
This piece has much more comic undertones which fuel its success in promoting social justice. Another aspect of this piece which I find extremely compelling is the way it dismantles the notion that math is / should be neutral. Calling upon the words of renowned historian Howard Zinn, the article states that ‘“In a world where justice is maldistributed, there is no such thing as a neutral or representative recapitulation of the facts.”’ Ultimately, as the piece argues, every math question is political: “When teachers fail to include math problems that help students confront important global issues, or when they don’t bring out the underlying implications of problems like the first example here, these are political choices, whether the teachers recognize them as such or not. These choices teach students three things:
1. They suggest that politics are not relevant to everyday situations
2. They cast mathematics as having no role in understanding social injustice and power imbalances.
3. They provide students with no experience using math to make sense of, and try to change, unjust situations.
These all contribute to disempowering students and are objectively political acts, though not necessarily conscious ones.”
Other sites I looked into either catered to children much younger than myself, cost money, or whose lessons were truly unfortunate. Generally, I found that many people spoke powerfully about the value of teaching social justice math, but made it difficult to actually access these lessons. It is from this point that I began on my own journey integrating social justice and math.
This piece has much more comic undertones which fuel its success in promoting social justice. Another aspect of this piece which I find extremely compelling is the way it dismantles the notion that math is / should be neutral. Calling upon the words of renowned historian Howard Zinn, the article states that ‘“In a world where justice is maldistributed, there is no such thing as a neutral or representative recapitulation of the facts.”’ Ultimately, as the piece argues, every math question is political: “When teachers fail to include math problems that help students confront important global issues, or when they don’t bring out the underlying implications of problems like the first example here, these are political choices, whether the teachers recognize them as such or not. These choices teach students three things:
1. They suggest that politics are not relevant to everyday situations
2. They cast mathematics as having no role in understanding social injustice and power imbalances.
3. They provide students with no experience using math to make sense of, and try to change, unjust situations.
These all contribute to disempowering students and are objectively political acts, though not necessarily conscious ones.”
Other sites I looked into either catered to children much younger than myself, cost money, or whose lessons were truly unfortunate. Generally, I found that many people spoke powerfully about the value of teaching social justice math, but made it difficult to actually access these lessons. It is from this point that I began on my own journey integrating social justice and math.
Part Three: Problem Set
Part Four: Reflection
After this process, I finally understand the difficulty that goes into crafting an effective “social justice math question”—even I struggled to create questions that did what I wanted them to do. I found myself falling into the trap of diversifying questions—and maybe even realized that this is not necessarily always a trap. While exchanging John for Jesus is cheap, replacing a heteronormative question with a question that raises awareness about the LGBT+ community is valuable: Representation matters in any medium! I finally understand why both RadicalMath and Rethinking Schools either don’t have their work published for free or haven’t written explicit problems, because this process is long and difficult. It is worth mentioning one of the questions I came across in my search, which really stuck out for me. Through RadicalMath I was given access to a lesson that integrated a lesson on powerful marches with the distance formula (which can be found here: http://www.cpp.edu/~ahimsacenter/k12/documents/Chang_Lesson2.pdf). I thought this just lovely. While it looks nothing like any of the problems I created, I believe the questions were created with the same intention: bringing social justice to the math classroom.
