Mathematics and Social Justice

This article explores the concept of critical pedagogy in mathematics. It addresses how critical pedagogy is underrated in the math world today, but really, math is the best place to utilize it. Often times, students have low self-efficacy is math, because they have been beaten down by not remembering the formulas or processes. However, when implementing critical pedagogy, an instructor can help spark student's self-efficacy as they open their eyes to worldly issues. Teachers can help students feel like their opinion matters about social issues - especially if students understand the math and facts behind those issues.

You know an article is good when it sparks an entire unit. After reading from Lawrence M Lesser and Sally Blake's "Mathematical Power: Exploring Critical Pedagogy In Mathematics and Statistics," I already have an entire unit on proportions planned revolving around the common doll or action figure with ties to social justice. When I learned about proportions, we were always given application questions that did not apply to our age level of adolescents. In the book, critical pedagogy is described as "the exploder of myths" (pg 55). So, how about exploding the myth of body image that is impressed upon the youth with the images of Barbie dolls and action figures? Have the class measure the size of Barbie's body parts and see if the life-size proportions are anything close to our size. I would bet that Barbie's head, breasts, and feet would not be normal. Same goes with action figures, the size of the muscles in comparison to the waist size is not proportional. Yet, many students grew up with these dolls modeling how they should look. Using critical pedagogy skills, such as analytical reasoning can help students see the real life issues - like body image in the media.

The author's push analytic reasoning even further "to explore several specific, concrete real-life scenarios which stimulate a sense of social justice could influence student empowerment" (pg. 4). To continue with the dolls and action figures, looking into where they are manufactured and discussing salaries of the sweatshop workers. A discussion about the injustice of sweatshop labor can expand students' view to other cultures and perspectives. As teachers, we are called to develop are students, prepare them for the real world, and not just ensure proficiency in content areas. We need to put critical pedagogy in action, in order to help our students critically think and act. Students need to be aware of the world in order to live in it.

Want to check out this article? View it here: http://www.jceps.com/PDFs/05-1-13.pdf

Multicultural Education in Mathematics

Before reading Frederick L. Uy's article, Teaching Mathematics Concepts Using a Multicultural Approach, I thought I would have to bend over backwards to incorporate multicultural education into my math class. But Frederick proved me wrong. In fact, it's pretty easy to connect math to culture. Frederick must have read from Chapter 5 as well, because he knows the benefits of multicultural education and takes it one step further by applying it to mathematics.

Frederick's article discusses the benefits of multicultural education in mathematics, which include: humanizing mathematics lessons and topics, the inclusion of all students and boosting confidence levels, provides holistic learning with a interdisciplinary approach, determines math usage in other societies, corrects inaccuracies within math, increases awareness of universality of math, recognizes existence of other approaches to math, promotes critical thinking, and is consistent with constructiveness. Frederick then explains the necessary people involved in multicultural education - not just the students and the teachers, but administrators, curriculum supervisors and even the parents at home. It’s a collective effort to teach with a multicultural perspective. Frederick offers guidance of where a multicultural approach in teaching mathematics can be implemented. These locations include: in the introduction of a lesson, providing the historical background of a concept, in the examples during a lesson, when connecting to interdisciplinary units, when celebrating holidays, etc. Finally, Frederick provides a few guidelines when planning: maintain focus on the mathematical content in the multiculturalism, uphold educational equity, develop collaboration and empowerment of entire learning community, promote inter-group harmony in the classroom, help increase knowledge of various cultures, and enable students to think and see from a multicultural perspective, and help correct misjudgments of inaccuracies of cultures.

This article proves that multicultural education can be effective if used effectively. One of the guidelines that I think is most important is to not lose the mathematical content in the multicultural approaches. I know I would probably try to oversell multiculturalism to the point where they would lose the math concepts. It’s key for all educators to recognize that the content comes first and all else comes second. But that does not mean educators are limited. That does not mean that only the content is what is learned in the classroom. Rather the content needs to be the core of the classroom. I think it’s a challenge that we need to optimize the content with the multicultural approach. we need to surround the core with layers of our students' backgrounds and interests; as well as layers of other cultures. That way, students will be able to see how these layers relate to the core - the content. One way I plan on implementing multicultural education into my classroom is in the explanation of the historical background and in examples of content. Instead of making up stories for word problems or making up statistics and such, why not use actual ones? Those actual examples can be connections to other cultures.

After reading this article and getting my gears turning, I accept the challenge of teaching mathematics with a multicultural approach.  

You can find Frederick L. Uy's article here:

http://www.ccd.rpi.edu/eglash/nasgem/ncsm04/Uy,%20Fred%20Teaching%20Concepts.pdf