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 believe that the lesson was a great example of how we as teachers should be including cultural issues into all of our classrooms. I cannot believe that the parents would send letters complaining about integrating this information into your lesson. I can probably tell you that this is the first time that you had students go home and talk about their math class. I can guarantee you that normally they would not have said a word a word about math class. I would have assumed that the information about income levels among different groups of people would have raised some very interesting questions during the assignment. I would have though that they would have gone home and told their parents about what they had learned. I would have expected that the parents would be thankful that you were providing a global education for their students. This information is valuable and is something that they need to be aware of. Social injustices exist and they occur all around us. Your principal is right in that you have to respond to the letters that were sent from the parents. I would not apologize for integrating the information. I would just explain what your motives where and why this information is relevant to their children. In the letter, I would include a list of the other issues that you plan to integrate into your lessons so that they can contact you ahead of time if they have any additional issues. I would also suggest sending the same letter home to the rest of the students in the classroom so that their parents will be aware of what topics you will be integrating into your math class. Next time, you may want to send this letter home at the beginning of school because a lot of teachers do not take the time to include this type of information into their lessons. 'Glass ceilings' do exist for different races and sexes and this information is important to your students. In my opinion, this is definitely a battle worth fighting. I would not remove this content out of my lessons. I would also keep my principal up to date with what I am teaching so that he is not bombarded with phone calls or letters that may arise in the future.