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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!) Since your principal did not reprimand you or ask you to remove the content from the lessons, my impression is that he or she is not opposed to what you are teaching. The support of the administration can make a lot of difference in a situation like this. As for the parents, you should respond directly to their specific concerns. Did the lesson lead to behaviors which indicated hatred among the students? (I am assuming that the lesson did not. If it had, I would suggest reassessing your presentation of the material.) In response to their concern about wasting the students' time, the lesson in social justice was well incorporated into the math assignment. In order to complete the graphs, the students needed data from one source or another, and your choice of data was more meaningful and relevant than, for example, data showing what color shirts everyone in the class was wearing or their favorite flavor of ice cream. Therefore, time was not wasted; one source of data was simply substituted for another. I think that it is important to expose students, even of this age group, to this kind of information, however uncomfortable it may make their parents. The reason that women and minorities continue to make significantly lower salaries than their white male counterparts is that people either do not know that the problem exists or that they choose to ignore the problem and do nothing about it. There should be more teachers who refuse to ignore important social issues, thereby working against the general complacency and inaction that have made this flawed system possible. |
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