Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: Math and Social Justice! No No! Recently, I read a report in a national magazine on income levels of different groups of people in the US. The report especially featured income differences between males, females and different ethnic groups. Some of the statistics were very disturbing. For example, women holding the same job as men with same number of years in the job made considerably less money in most of the states. Differences between ethnic groups were even more disturbing. I decided to use these data in my math class with my 5th graders in a lesson on graphing. The purpose was for the students to be able to interpret graphs and create graphs using the information provided. Students enjoyed the lesson and learned some social justice lessons. Apparently a lot of my students talked to their parents about what they had learned in class when they went home. I received notes from about 10 parents the next day simply indicating that what I taught in my math class would lead to hatred among my students and that I should not be wasting their children's valuable time. Rather, they suggested, I should teach math with no controversial materials. I completely disagree with them and I plan to use similar materials in my other courses as well. However, my principals asked me to send an explanation to those parents. I know my explanation will not stop the complaints. How should I go about this potentially long battle? Or should I take the short cut simply remove such content from my lessons? Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) It is long established that behavioral expectations of teachers and curriculum content meet individual school community standards. My advice to this teacher meets the expectations of my school community. My school is 99% African American 100% of our children receive free breakfast and lunch. In addition, all student who participate in an after school program receive a free meal before going home each day. My school's demographic information factors into my advice for the teacher in this scenario. The teacher in this scenario if anything would receive accolades, not letters of concern from students, parents, peers, and administration from my school community. However, I would strongly advise this teacher to build relationships with the concerned parents. The teacher could invite all of the concerned parents and additional parents who may have expressed appreciation for this particular assignment scenario to a meeting to discuss a variety of scenarios to present to children when teaching math that would widen the students' view of communities beyond their own community. This teacher could use the parent concerns as a way to differentiate instructional materials in their classroom. Instead of all students receiving the same scenario, the teacher could provide a variety of scenarios to the students. I recommend that the teacher employ cooperative group discussions to discuss student answers. This would allow the information utilized in this scenario to be addressed without requiring every student to engage the topic at the same level of understanding. I have participated in a variety of school communities. As I pondered what I advise I would give this teacher, my answer shifted when trying to make it applicable to each of the school communities in which I have served children. This lead to even more thought on the topic of teaching social justices within content area classes. I finally concluded that there is not one best answer when attempting to advise the math teacher in this scenario. If the community in the scenario for this assignment historically established a set of curriculum content avoiding the content of the scenario, I would advise the teacher to adapt the content of their examples to meet the expectations of the school community in which the teacher serves children.