Now that summer is upon us, educators the nation over are huddled over charts and graphs, mapping out new and improved ways to create the stupidest children on the planet. Today's column will focus on why math is racist and 2+2 is a symbol of white supremacist patriarchy.
For example, it seems the California State Board of Education has adopted its 2023 teaching framework for K-12 math curricula. Predictably, this guidance seeks to avoid anything as complex as teaching numbers and instead will implement lessons on equity and social justice.
This framework includes "equitable and engaging" guidance in which educators are advised to "teach towards social justice" and in "culturally responsive ways" that "draw on students' backgrounds."
"Students' perceptions of their capacity to succeed in mathematics are shaped by messaging from teachers and society," the framework shows. "Many efforts in recent years have focused on increasing rates of success among members of historically underrepresented groups in mathematical fields. These include expanded professional training in effective pedagogical practices as well as greater attention on role models and kinds of materials used in the classroom." [Emphasis added.]
What am I missing here? If there are "historically underrepresented groups in mathematical fields," how will these "underrepresented groups" become better represented in mathematics if they are not taught math? If students of color are taught that two plus two is racist, then how will representation in mathematical fields improve?
It should be clear this is little more than an effort to create the dumbest students on the planet. Listen carefully: MATH IS NOT RACIST.
Even in the poorest nations on earth (which, according to this article, include Burundi, Somalia, Afghanistan, Niger, etc.), math is not considered racist. It's just math. Why, then, must American educators pretend otherwise?
Math is only "racist" when BIPOC children are not expected to learn it. In the "bigotry of low expectations," the unspoken assumption of educators is BIPOC children are too stupid to learn the sum of two plus two. Instead of teaching them how math works and expecting high standards, the children are given condescending pats on the head and compassionately told math is racist, so don't worry their little brains about it. Someone else will do the thinking for them.
Consider University of Michigan professor Deborah Ball, who wrote a piece a couple years ago in the Detroit Free Press about why racism, not personal behavior, accounts for the out-of-proportion suspension rates of minority kids.
"The curriculum has also been unsafe," she notes. "It has detached students of color, LGBTQIA+ students and multilingual children as they learn that they are not 'normal.' The images, knowledge, people and values that permeate history, science and art, as well as mathematics, language and text are harmful. They distort the experiences of Indigenous people, of Black communities and of immigrant groups. They re-inscribe whiteness, heteronormativity and English as normal and desirable."
Or how about this memo from the Oregon Department of Education, which promotes an online course for math teachers designed to "dismantle" instances of "white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom."
Or how about a professor of math education at Brooklyn College who argued that 2+2=4 "reeks of white supremacist patriarchy."
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Or how about this California curricula that teach all about "math identity rainbows" but can't find its way to teaching about actual numbers.
It seems this scramble of excuses are little more than leftist educators who are desperate – desperate – to explain why, after generations of monopoly in public education, they're producing students who are among the stupidest on the planet and still can't add two and two.
But of course, in pointing this out, the educators' only response is to point at their critics and call them – what else? – racist. What they fail to explain is why it's racist to want children of color to learn math. "As for me," wrote the incomparable (black) economist Walter Williams before his death in 2020, "I would like to see the proof, in any culture, that 2 plus 2 is something other than 4."
Are there no educators who agree with this? Is the whole educational system so completely corrupt? Can anyone actually defend the notion that two plus two oppresses certain people?
It sickens me to realize what an enormous disservice these leftist policies are doing to children, especially children of color. Will it help a black child's future prospects to be unable to add two and two? How will this help him as an adult?
But maybe I'm being too harsh. The educators mean well, according to Debra J. Saunders in The American Spectator. "They want to close the achievement gap between white and black and Latino students," she writes. "But they're doing it the wrong way. They're trying to close the gap by pretending that math – a discrete discipline forged on the purity of numbers – can be taught like English or political science."
But the end result is the same. Children of color are not being taught math; they're being taught oppression by virtue-signaling educators unable or unwilling to recognize the harm they're doing.
And, not incidentally, America's future is at stake. Without the precision of mathematics, all STEM subjects suffer. Do you want to drive on a bridge or fly on a plane built with woke standards of social justice? If educators want more BIPOC students to enter STEM fields – and succeed – then social justice must take a back seat to mathematical purity.
Meanwhile, I hardly need remind you, the Chinese as well as other nations with visions of world domination are laughing up their sleeves. This is great! Let the stupid Americans teach that math is racist and two plus two equals five! Go for it!
Look, if math educators want to teach that math is racist and must be infused with social justice, just give it up and stop calling it math. Just call it social justice. And then, when America is taken over by nations with their own version of "social justice," don't pretend these educators didn't have a direct hand in our downfall.
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