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!) As the parent of a 5th grader, I'm not sure that I would want my 5th graders exposed to such a controversial topic such as this so early on. This is especially because my student isn't quite mature enough to look at facts, or research facts of their own to formulate an opinion. I think that by being exposed to such topics so early on, that students are sort of influenced by your opinions, and the manner in which the material is taught. I'm sure your intentions are not to teach the children hatred towards each other, but I can see how that could easily happen being that the students are so young. Perhaps if this was their first year of high school, I could see you presenting this material, but because this is 5th grade, and about 10 parents of at least 20 have complained, I suggest removing the content from the lesson.