Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice

Title: Talking about Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice

Author(s): David Stocker and David Wagner

Source: For the Learning of Mathematics, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Nov., 2007), pp. 17-21

This article is a conversation between David Stocker who (at the time of the article) taught grades 7 & 8 teacher in Toronto and David Wagner, who teaches undergraduate and graduate students and authored a curriculum book called, “Math that Matters” in 2006. For me, the article highlighted some tensions that exist within the area of teaching for social justice and how it relates it with mathematics education.

Tension 1: Ends-based versus process-based guidelines for social justice teaching

First, the authors negotiate the definition of social justice and peace. Both agree that non-violent approaches to conflict and democratic decision making are given. Stocker says that “the elimination of barriers to social, economic, and political inclusion based on race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion or ability” is a guiding principle for social justice. However, what is interesting is that Wagner problematizes this by distinguishing between process-based and ends-based visions for social justice teaching. Wagner does not focus on end-goals like ‘elimination of barriers’ because many people throughout history thought they were doing good for others with an end-goal in mind and because this outcome is impossible to achieve. (This reminded me of Canadian residential schools which Aboriginal students were forced to attend.) Rather than focusing on end-goals like elimination of barriers, Wagner chooses to focus on the processes we engage in order to enact our visions for social justice and peace-educating for awareness can be a form of non-violent resistance.

Tension 2: Protecting children versus perspective teaching

One argument against teaching about social justice issues like poverty, war or racial profiling is that we should let kids be kids. Immaculate Namukasa brought this up at the CMESG discussion group; she was born in a country with child soldiers. On the other hand, power-brokers (like those in big business) do not think about others and so we should teach students about different perspectives.  Also, the children we teach are dealing with issues (such as racial profiling, domestic abuse or poverty) and so by not confronting issues we could be disempowering them or silencing them further. Also, teaching social justice does not need to be depressing but rather we can treat students as agents of change and like they matter.

Tension 3: Teachers pointing students’ attention in particular ways is an act of power versus promoting students' personal agency

As teachers, directing students’ attention is an act of power. Providing meaningless contexts for mathematical application while asserting that mathematics is useful for addressing meaningful contexts can be seen as a low level of social abuse. If we work from outcomes based curriculum, this type of low level social abuse is inevitable; but forcing a exclusive social justice agenda or sole pure mathematics agenda is also a problem. As in the words of an Aboriginal elder, we are trying to have our students use their “common sense-that is their sense of the world and their place in it” (qtd. on page 20).

Tension 4: Balance

These authors think that as educators, teaching social justice is our responsibility. They both lean towards problem-based education instead of outcomes-based education. But play is also a part of learning. Sometimes use the word ‘balance’ as an excuse not to reflect on their teaching or as an excuse to water down their social justice teaching. The authors quote Malcom X “An extreme illness cannot be cured with a moderate medicine” (qtd. p. 20).

STOP:

I was really struck by Immaculate Namukasa’s idea in this article; why would we teach our children about horrible situations? It reminded me of a conversation in EDCP 566; we talked about Natasha Levinson and her idea of ‘natality’ and ‘being born into the world.’ Our students are born into the world as it is now, with our current political crises, environmental and social issues. We have to tread lightly in order to make space for hope and in order to make space for students to imagine the world differently.

I have tried to incorporate multiple perspectives social justice in various classes. I have found that when I try to promote my own agenda it doesn’t work but when we have open dialogue and I really let my students take the lead it tends to work a bit better. I have also learned that teaching about social justice requires trust.  I introduced the image on the left in a social justice art class a few weeks ago. We talked about mathematical principles to understand the quote and then I just let my students (all were girls) share their experiences. It was very hard to stop myself from jumping in, defining what the students were talking about and taking the conversation in some tangential direction. I finally concluded the classes’ discussion by saying I have been a girl for a while so I have been thinking and talking about these issues for long time. For an eleven year olds the issues were about a boy blocking them in the hallway all the time (a form of violence), proving themselves to be good at a sport and respected (having a legitimacy to enter a field) and navigating ‘liking’ a boy but being better than them at school (socialization and competition). I felt really good about how our class had developed trust so that they could share and that they told their stories through art. They also had a mathematical statistic spark the discussion.

On the messy side of things, I had one student say her least favorite part of the class was class discussions (but that she liked the making art part)-she didn’t get it. To me this highlighted that avoiding ‘group think’ when teaching about social justice is also important. Promoting critical thinking and personal engagement is the point of education. Overall, I had wonderful feedback from students and parents but that one student makes us think as educators.

I also realized that I have David Wagner’s curriculum book ‘Math that Matters’. I was excited when I first got it (I liked the Noddings and Freire quotes) but I never used it. It made me wonder about if I have an underlying idea that there is a schism between math and social justice?... it took me a while to realize that what we did in art class was related to math. How much math do we have to do in order to make it social justice in math education?  It made me wonder if it is because I have a pre-conceived notion about the types of kids who go math classes? I think addressing how to introverted students fare in social justice teaching would also be an interesting point of departure.

Question:

Is there a particular tension about social justice teaching that resonates with you? Is there an idea from this summary that you have thought about?