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!) When parents or guardians do not understand the procedures being used with his/her student they could lose trust in the abilities of the teacher. The parents or guardians will start "seeking and acquiring more and more control over that may or may not be done in the classrooms" (Alberto, 2013, p.27). If the parents and teacher have clearly defined procedures being used at home and in the classroom then it builds a relationship of trust in the understanding and care of the student. As the teacher you need to explain that you are using real world examples to teach math concepts to the classroom of students. The example of the salary differences showed students that in society people are treated differently. In educating students about the inequality in the work environment, you hope that the students will become challenged to find a way to fight the inequality when they become adults. Elizabeth Comella References Alberto, P.A. & Troutman, A.C. (2013). Applied behavior analysis for teachers (9th Ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.