[conspire] Is math instruction racist?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> There is a group that wants to change math instruction in CA.  They
> say that it is a white supremist attitude to focus on getting the
> right answer:
> https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf

1.  The academic Left is fundamentally incapable of saying a simple
thing simply, and without moralising.  That's why they are ineffective 
and people tend to knee-jerk and roll eyes on encountering an 82-page 
treatise saying something that makes a simple point almost completely
incomprehensibly.

Here's one of my favourite maverick writers, John Dolan, writing about
academia (among other matters):

  Long experience of academic discourse convinced me of the truth of the
  old, bitter truism that that the average academic article has exactly
  three readers: the author, anonymous reader, and proofreader.

  The very concept of the "reader," in contemporary academic idiom,
  refers to an anonymous functionary, acting as gatekeeper of a journal,
  who decides whether an article serves the needs of the Academics'
  Guild.

  These requirements - for example, that the article cite every other
  academic who has written on the topic - ensure that the text will be
  unreadable to outsiders; but that never seems to trouble most
  gatekeeper/readers. Indeed, tracing the lineage of sheer hatred for
  popular culture and its audience from Adorno to Jameson, it's hard to
  avoid the conclusion that beneath our surface stance of defiance is
  envious disdain. We weren't challenging contemporary culture; we were
  snubbing it, unnoticed - a ridiculous tableau.

https://web.archive.org/web/20091021035749/http://mokk.bme.hu/kozpont/konferenciak/szetfolyoirat/eloadasok/dolanj

In other words, being understood by the public and having any effect on
the real world is anathema to academic "social critics".  They'd be
thrown out of the club.


2. Translation of the authors' point, into plain English:

Er, well, sometimes a tract in academic-ese isn't built around a simple
point.  This one wanders around several systemic problems in
contemporary math instruction it takes as given, and makes broad,
general recommendations about how to fix them.  The obvious audience
is readers who have accepted those problems being real and serious in 
some other discussion, hence the problems aren't traced out and
illustrated.  My effort to list them:

(a) Some math teaching marks answers wrong if not arrived at in
the intended way.
(b) Math students are penalised for collaborating.
(c) Math problems are sometimes needlessly dependent on tricky wording,
    penalising English-learners.
(d) In part because of "teaching to the test", teaching understanding
    math is often sacrificed for putting 100% emphasis on right answers.
(e) Mistakes are punished rather than being used as springboards for
    learning.
(f) Math is sometimes taught in a fashion unnecessarily dependent on
    learning skills in a particular order, which leaves behind 
    students who had atypical exposure to the subject.

I've put my toe into the themes; there are more along those lines, and
I'm disinclined to spend more time plowing through all 82 pages again.

Anyway, point is, this is _not_ a document explaining the concepts and 
problems the authors see standing in the way of "equitable math
instruction".  It is a workboook for teacher who have reasons, not
embodied in this text, for accepting the authors' assumptions and
priorities.

And, anyway, it's worth pondering who's speaking.  The About page says:
"a team of teachers, instructional coaches, researchers, professional
development providers, and curriculum writers with expertise in
mathematics education, English language development, and culturally
responsive pedagogy".  A separate page lists 34 educator types.

In other words, some qualified professionals with a point of view.
Not a government agency.