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!) The lesson you were teaching using real world statistics to teach children about graphing and socio-economic concerns for the nation is really important. I recall doing a similar project for the economics class I took my senior year of high school. It was a real eye opener for students who had already begun thinking about what careers we wanted to pursue in college. I would start the project by providing a detailed explanation of the lesson to parents. You might title it "Why is math at school important to my future?" which would relate the concepts to parents and students. Then explain the social economic motivations for the lesson to get students to think about potential careers, economic success and cultural diversity. Next explain the curriculum related math concepts being taught in the lesson. That would make the lesson educationally relevant to students and parents. I would also add a student career/economy essay so students could select a career of their choice, find out what the economic outlook of the profession are and where they would fit in personally with the national economic statistics. I would also ask them to think of ways they could improve their economic outlook in their chosen career by earning additional college degrees, creating a savings plan or working at a supplemental part time job. I would also ask them to discuss how cultural diversity issues such as ethnic or gender prejudice might impact their long term economic outlook. I would then share the project with the principal so that he or she would be aware to the lesson and could make suggestions for alterations as needed. Then conduct a introduction discussion to present the lesson to the students while providing ground rules on your expectations of students positive participation. Hold discussions with the students as they complete each of the elements of the lesson. Then conduct a post discussion with the students on what they learned, how it motivated them to continue working well at school and whether or not it changed some of their potential career interests and why.That would be a great way to combine math concepts with real world relevance for students.