Mathematics Prof Claims Proficiency in Math is White Supremacy
“the very nature of the knowledge and who’s produced it, and what has counted as mathematics is itself dominated by whiteness and racism.”
Have any of the people who push this woke nonsense ever considered that they might be doing more harm than good for their students?
Kenin M. Spivak writes at National Review:
The Folly of ‘Woke’ Math
Math proficiency is white supremacy, proclaims Deborah Lowenberg Ball, a mathematics professor and former dean of the University of Michigan School of Education.
In the latest episode of the EdFix Podcast, Ball complains that math is a “harbor for whiteness” and “the very nature of the knowledge and who’s produced it, and what has counted as mathematics is itself dominated by whiteness and racism.” She groans that considering math proficiency to be a sign of intelligence is “raced.” In response, host, Michel Feuer, dean of the George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development, gushes, “Listening to you is the greatest positive reinforcement to be in this profession.”
Unsurprisingly, Ball’s solution included a plug for her consultancy, TeachingWorks, funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. TeachingWorks is no doubt ready to profit by assisting school districts to interrupt “patterns of racism.”
Ball’s views and Feuer’s obeisance sound like parody. Yet, this dangerous paradigm — that getting the right answer, using the right method, or believing some students are more capable than others is white supremacy — is strongly endorsed by educators, leading mathematics organizations, and policy-makers. Include, in the latter group, the Oregon and California Departments of Education. Much of the research and the dissemination of this twaddle is funded by the Gates Foundation, which last year spent $642 million for its U.S. program, including Pathways and other initiatives that focus on eliminating white supremacy from math.
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Comments
Just another flighty, overwrought female whose emotions overcome common sense.
More and more the number of women who really need to go make somebody a sammitch continues to grow.
That, or return to traditional roles like motherhood, or writing for the Society section of the local paper.
I disagree. The “consultancy” they mention shows that she has a clear business model and is promoting it. She will likely make a great deal of money off of this. Quite a bit more than a professor’s pay.
Doesn’t seem quite so overwrought when you look at it that way, does it?
You were right. But it’s the damage that she will do along the way that concerns me.
And they’re running the world.
This is what it sounds like when someone who can pull the race card gives up and takes the parachute, with a lovely side hustle to help along the way down.
Correct math is required to build virtually everything. E.G. bridges, cars, homes,
We need everything that is built to be safe and not fall apart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXSxnw
No.
Math is private property that belongs to white people.
If you don’t like it, build your own math.
That’s the proper paradigm today, isn’t it?
Yes. And some binary person will cast a hex on you if you disagree.
I think I must be black.
IIRC we invented in 1618, so there!
“Ball’s research focuses on the practice of teaching, using elementary mathematics as a critical context for investigating the challenges of building relationships with children and helping children develop agency and understanding, and on leveraging the power of teaching to disrupt racism, marginalization, and inequity. Ball is an expert on teacher education, and her current work centers on ways to improve the quality of beginning teaching to advance justice.”
From her U of M page. Pure self-serving garbage. Her undergrad degree is in French and Elementary Ed. She’s been sitting in academe almost her entire careeer.
“She’s been sitting in academe almost her entire careeer.”
You left out the letter “H” in one of those words.
Yeah, all those damn Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian and Bangladeshi white supremacists who are good at math….
Not to mention Jooooooz.
Don’t forget the Arabs who invented algebra…
Although, the inventor of calculus was a white guy*, so maybe there is some validity to white guys being sadists…
Sir Isaac Newton was my first cousin 10 times removed… making me a genius by relation
> Don’t forget the Arabs who invented algebra…
Dennis Miller’s comment to that (when he was still on SNL):
Well, thanks a heap for that!
I guess that makes me a white supremacist, then.
“Graduate School of Education” If this is not a prime example of “Tits on a boar hog.” I don’t know what is.
“Masters in Taxation.”
I was once audited by one of these.
I told him that any country that had such a credential was already doomed.
Perhaps she should put her money where her mouth is and go live in a cave, which is about where we would be without real mathematics. By the way, a 9th century Muslim, not a white supremacist, is known as the “father of algebra”. Incidentally, my 2nd grade grandson, not in a democrat-controlled public school, but a parochial school, is starting to be exposed to ideas that lead up to algebra; and not issues of gender identity, which will be required of public schools in my state by the end of second grade as of next September.
He is no more the father of algebra than our numbering system is Arabic. Neither of those things are true. If you want to call anybody the “father of algebra” it should be Diophantus, who was doing his thing 700 years before the “father of algebra”.
Unmentioned is that “education” programs are still the catch-all for people who are bad at serious scholarship.
Those who can’t, pick up a degree in “education”.
“School of Education.”
Say no more.
“Proficiency in Math is Proof of White Supremacy”
There, fixed it for you.
White Supremacy, White Asian Supremacy, White Semitic Supremacy, even White Hispanic Supremacy.
Raise your hand if I didn’t call your name.
Proficiency in math is probably one of the first examples of meritocracy that young people encounter along with proficiency in baseball and other sports. Some people have natural talent and those that don’t grow frustrated or envious.
So people are socialized into believing that they cannot be good a school work, and their is peer pressure on them to not excel academically. Other people are expected by their parents to do well in school. This is true of many subjects, not just math.
Perhaps, if lunatics weren’t having their insane ideas published, the lunacy might end. Just a thought.
you forgot proficiency in reading.
It’s hard to take this seriously–and it’s obviously all about the money–all of this woke theory and white supremacy appears to be about these people making a lot of money off of school boards and other inept govt agencies
I thought the sorted all of this out on “The Wire.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YePRy8KWC4A
if only that were true – I, a white person, wouldn’t have failed algebra two years in a row.
I failed it twice in high school. I finally took it again at Portland Community College, and got an A. Why? Because my instructor was not a teacher. He worked for one of the nearby tech firms and taught at night. He got through to me.
Dr. Norton no, not that one), if you are still with us and see this, The Bear thanks you once again!
This is Marxist hogwash. Remember Saul Bellow’s famous line:
““Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans? I’d be glad to read him.”