Math and Social Injustice

When you walk into a typical math class on a typical day in almost any school, you'll notice that most of the students are bored and distracted. That, believes Jonathan Osler, founder of RadicalMath, is a social justice issue.

"Math classes should give students the tools to better understand their reality. Who cares if 'Train A goes x+4 times faster than train B' when your community isn't adequately served by public transportation?"

Traditional math curricula don't teach students how to compare the density of check-cashers to banks in low-income communities, evaluate college loan plans to determine which offer the most favorable rates, or analyze data on rates of diabetes and asthma in communities of color. Lesson plans for addressing all of these issues can be found at RadicalMath.org, a free website for educators interested in integrating issues of economic and social justice into their math classes.

"I believe in engaging and empowing students to learn about issues that are relevant to their lives and communities," says RadicalMath founder, Jonathan Osler, who taught in a public high school in Brooklyn, New York for six years and now coaches math teachers in a public high school in Los Angeles. "But there were no sources of information for how I could integrate social justice issues into my math classes, so I began writing my own curricula and posting it online." Two years later, RadicalMath contains over 800 lesson plans, data sets, and articles, has received over 1,000,000 page views, and has drawn visitors from all over the world.

Osler explains that it is critical for students to graduate from high school with strong math skills, prepared for math-based college majors and careers. But equally strong is his belief that in order to address our country's most pressing problems, young people need to become agents for change in their lives and communities, and math is a tool that can help them do so.

RadicalMath.org contains information on dozens of issues including racial profiling, immigration, global warming, and the criminal justice system. There are also numerous financial education resources and lesson plans on economic topics such as minimum vs. living wage, predatory lending, the mathematics of the lottery, and home ownership.

Last April, Osler, along with several other RadicalMath contributors, organized a national conference to discuss teaching math through a social justice lens. This first annual "Creating Balance in an Unjust World" conference drew over 500 educators, activists, parents and students from around the country to Brooklyn, NY. Osler and the other organizers expect to draw twice as many participants to this year's conference.

from www.mathgoodies.com

Math Flies ‘Off the Shelf’

Cereal and soup labels are the recipe for improved skills in an event called "Math Off the Shelf." Angie Rabie, a Title I ESL parent involvement facilitator at Langley Elementary School in Hampton, Virginia, uses the program to teach parents how they can make the most of "teachable moments" in supermarkets and at home in the kitchen.
"I developed this workshop as a classroom teacher a few years ago," recalled Rabie. "It occurred to me that there are many opportunities for parents to reinforce math skills at home during everyday activities using items commonly found in their kitchen."
With the help of her mother, who is also an educator, Rabie developed ways for children in kindergarten through fifth grade to reinforce math skills at home. She carried the activity with her into a new role as parent involvement facilitator and found it to be a perfect fit.
"What impressed me the most about the event was the ability for parents to take the ideas presented to them and think of other activities they could do as well," she explained.
The experience of using common household goods to explore math has had other unexpected outcomes. One child who spoke limited English was able to teach his parents an unfamiliar concept by using pantry items presented during the workshop. Rabie's use of concrete materials make moments like this possible, and it is a practice she recommends to others who hold events like "Math Off the Shelf."
"Do not just talk about the concepts and give the information in written form," Rabie advised. "For example, don't just talk about using Froot Loops to reinforce patterns, sorting, and graphing; have Froot Loops on the day of the workshop and have parents and children actually do the activities together." Since the inception of the workshop, teachers have become increasingly involved and committed to the program. Now Rabie's peers who teach math join her in planning and implementing it. The materials have been translated into Spanish so that all attendees can follow along.
"Future improvements include breaking parents into groups based on grade levels instead of having all parents combined together," added Rabie. "That will allow parents to see more activities specific to the grade levels of their children."
 from www.educationworld.com