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!) I would not take the easy way out and remove the content. It is vital that issues of bias are discussed at an early age. I think the principal is in an awkward position because he wanted to be supportive, but also had a job to do and needed to contact parents and explain how important it is to have an interdisciplinary approach to teaching. The biggest thing is that everyone needs to understand the real-world applications of this information and why you want to include it in the class. The students also need to understand the purpose of the lesson and what they need to get out of it. Conversations of this type are always productive and useful, but there needs to be an understanding of what the purpose is and why they are discussing the topic.