College Professor Says Math Is Racist, Anti-Gay, etc

@kevcvs57 said
I just cannot imagine how you would do that, what would that look like.
“If you had 15 slaves but you lynched two of them and worked three to death how many slaves do you now have”
It’s the politicisation of math by right wing culture warriors that is going to destroy its innate purity.

Oh nonsense. There is nothing right-wing, left-wing, or even remotely political about 1+1=2.

Do not take what I say to mean there should be no "real world" applications in a mathematics course. Applications concerning profit and loss, data on the weights of trout in a lake, problems about mixing different kinds of nuts that have different prices, and so on are all fine. But the applications should be limited, because most of them should really be addressed in a science class, or an economics class (usually required in high school), or a civics class (also usually required), or some other kind of course. The focus in a mathematics class should always be on the 1+1=2 aspect of the subject, with just enough applications sprinkled in so as to make the mathematics connect seamlessly with whatever a student's science, economics, or civics class is doing -- or whatever.

Anything else is a distraction. Indeed, it is educational in itself to expose students from a young age to at least one subject that is practically apolitical (i.e. as apolitical as can be achieved in practice in this crazy world). To inject emotion into every single subject at all times is blinkered and blinding. There has to be one room at the school, or one time during the school day, when the raging culture wars can be left at the door and everyone can study with monastic tranquility the pure logic of mathematics. Emotion does not always get at the truth. There are truths in the universe that can only be discovered or appreciated in a space devoid of emotion, with all its attendant hot-topic survey results, constant ticker tapes of political or historical grievances, "my" rights versus "their" rights debates, and on and on.

So, while so-called social-emotional learning* may have some merit in an English or gym class, it should be largely or entirely banished from mathematics courses in the K-12 system.


* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social%E2%80%93emotional_learning

@soothfast said
Oh nonsense. There is nothing right-wing, left-wing, or even remotely political about 1+1=2.

Do not take what I say to mean there should be no "real world" applications in a mathematics course. Applications concerning profit and loss, data on the weights of trout in a lake, problems about mixing different kinds of nuts that have different prices, and so on are all fine ...[text shortened]... s courses in the K-12 system.


* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social%E2%80%93emotional_learning

You do realize that what the OP was complaining about has zero to do with K-12, don't you?

@soothfast said
Oh nonsense. There is nothing right-wing, left-wing, or even remotely political about 1+1=2.

Do not take what I say to mean there should be no "real world" applications in a mathematics course. Applications concerning profit and loss, data on the weights of trout in a lake, problems about mixing different kinds of nuts that have different prices, and so on are all fine ...[text shortened]... s courses in the K-12 system.


* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social%E2%80%93emotional_learning

correct

@soothfast said
Oh nonsense. There is nothing right-wing, left-wing, or even remotely political about 1+1=2.

Do not take what I say to mean there should be no "real world" applications in a mathematics course. Applications concerning profit and loss, data on the weights of trout in a lake, problems about mixing different kinds of nuts that have different prices, and so on are all fine ...[text shortened]... s courses in the K-12 system.


* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social%E2%80%93emotional_learning

Teaching mathematics is still teaching and if certain groups are systematically underperforming, then it behooves the teachers to re-examine their methods.

@no1marauder said
Teaching mathematics is still teaching and if certain groups are systematically underperforming, then it behooves the teachers to re-examine their methods.

the only possible thing is to dumb it down, cant go any other way.

The smart way is to seperate everyone by ability and let them succeed to the best of their ability.

Different mental capacity would mean different classes.
Dumbing down the curriculum because "certain people" are dumb is retarded.

@no1marauder said
You do realize that what the OP was complaining about has zero to do with K-12, don't you?

The thread had already lurched, with the first post after the OP, to the issue of K-12 mathematics textbooks. I addressed the OP in the other thread about the same Vanderbilt professor last week. As you would say: *shrug*

@no1marauder said
Needless to say, he didn't say "math was racist".

you're twisting things, as usual.

A Tennessee university professor recently made the case that undergraduate mathematics education is discriminatory against queer and transgender students of color.

The mathematics is discriminatory, Ok?

Or: "STEM Education as a White, Cisheteropatriarchal Space,”


What a piece of lying garbage he is.

EDIT: STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Math.

Mathematic is as pure a truth-seeking endeavor as it gets. Philosophy is the only endeavor in its company.

What is this propaganda - Math is racist??

@no1marauder said
Teaching mathematics is still teaching and if certain groups are systematically underperforming, then it behooves the teachers to re-examine their methods.

Sure. But even the proponents of injecting social-emotional learning (SEL) into math classes do not claim that it will facilitate the learning of mathematics. To the contrary, it "aims to foster social and emotional skills within school curricula."*

SEL may be great in other courses, such as social studies, history, or psychology. But mathematics is predicated on logic, and on this subject the student is best served by content that is as dispassionate as possible. Even college students lose the plot in logic lessons when the examples are overly charged with controversial or emotional content. They fare better when the "real world" content is mundane in nature.

To put a finer point on something I broadsided earlier, there is also a lesson to be learned from studying a subject largely devoid of emotion or social context. I do not speak here of logic or mathematics specifically, but rather the ethereal idea of engaging in thought without emotion. This is something that modern Western societies, and perhaps particularly US society, cannot really fathom. At the risk of overly generalizing, this is something of an Eastern idea. This is meditation. Zen.

For just one class we lay our worldly passions and prejudices at the door. We shrug off our grievances and ledgers of slights and sorrows. We enter a realm of logic, and with that logic construct an edifice known as mathematics. And with mathematics we turn to some matters of science and other subjects that are wholly nonthreatening to all, and see what we can know of the natural universe. It is that simple. Then when the bell rings the kids can shuffle off to social studies class and scream about the maddening controversies of our times all they want.






* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social%E2%80%93emotional_learning

@booger said
The smart way is to seperate everyone by ability and let them succeed to the best of their ability.

Different mental capacity would mean different classes.
Dumbing down the curriculum because "certain people" are dumb is retarded.

I have suggested before that what the WOKEs are pushing for is separate-but-equal again, but, now I think you are right.

The far left is Marxist. They want everyone to be the same. having everyone get the same grade
affords them the chance to say that we are all equal. But the way to do that is to make sure that everyone can
answer a math problem any way that they wish and have it still be acceptable.
This Vanderbilt turd is not the only one to suggest altering the way we do math, correct answer be damned

And what ushers us to agree with an all-new teaching approach to math is to suggest that our current method is RACIST.

@earl-of-trumps said

A Tennessee university professor recently made the case that undergraduate mathematics education is discriminatory against queer and transgender students of color.

The mathematics is discriminatory, Ok?

Well, it should be pointed out that "mathematics" is not the same as "mathematics education."

And I also feel it should be pointed out that this professor is not a mathematics professor. He's a member of a department or college within the university that has a name that reads off like a laundry list of separate subjects.

@earl-of-trumps said
Mathematic is as pure a truth-seeking endeavor as it gets. Philosophy is the only endeavor in its company.

What is this propaganda - Math is racist??

Right wingers are gullible idiots.

He never said "math is racist".

@earl-of-trumps said
I have suggested before that what the WOKEs are pushing for is separate-but-equal again, but, now I think you are right.

The far left is Marxist. They want everyone to be the same. having everyone get the same grade
affords them the chance to say that we are all equal. But the way to do that is to make sure that everyone can
answer a math problem any way that th ...[text shortened]... to agree with an all-new teaching approach to math is to suggest that our current method is RACIST.

I know Breitbart tells you such nonsense, but it takes a particular kind of stupid to believe it.

@no1marauder said
Right wingers are gullible idiots.

He never said "math is racist".

“According to his university bio, he conducts studies on “narratives of oppression and agency across historically marginalized groups’ educational experiences to uncover interlocking functions of racism and cisheteropatriarchy in undergraduate STEM."”