Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice: Connecting math to students’ lives/communities and helping them change the world Julia Aguirre, Ph.D and Cynthia Oropesa Anhalt, Ph.D. Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as http://cemela.math.arizona.edu

Society for the Advancement of Chicano and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) October 27, 2006, Tampa, FL

National Science Foundation Award No. ESI-0424983

Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice “I thought math was just a subject they implanted on us just because they felt like it, but now I realize that you could use math to defend your rights and realize the injustices around you…[N]ow I think math is truly necessary and, I have to admit it, kinda cool. It’s sort of like a pass you could use to try to make the world a better place.” Freida, 9th Grade, Chicago Public Schools Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Session Overview • Summarize Key Ideas • Analyze some math lessons • Generate ideas for future lessons

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Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice • Students can learn that mathematics is an essential analytical tool to understand and potentially change the world. • Students can deepen their mathematical understanding through analyzing complex social issues that are important to them and their community. • Students can become more motivated to learn and engage with important rich mathematics. Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice • Students can deepen their understanding of important social issues such as racism and sexism, ecology and social class. • Students can connect mathematics to their own cultural and community histories and can appreciate the contributions that other cultures and people have made to mathematics. Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice • Students can understand their own power as active citizens in building a democratic society and become equipped to play an active role in that society using mathematics as a resource.

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Teaching Goals • Social Justice • Mathematics

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Teaching Goals: Social Justice

– Read the World with Mathematics

– Write the World with Mathematics

– Develop Positive Cultural/Social Identities Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Teaching Goals: Social Justice Read the World with Mathematics: to use mathematics to understand relations of power, resource inequities, and disparate opportunities between different social groups and to understand explicit discrimination based on race, class, gender, language, and other differences. Further, it means to dissect and deconstruct media and other forms of representation. It means to use mathematics to examine these various phenomena both in one’s immediate life and in the broader social world and to identify relationships and make connections between them. (Gutstein, 2003c, p. 45) Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Teaching Goals: Social Justice

Write the World with Mathematics: To use mathematics to change the world. To see oneself as capable of making change and developing a sense of social agency.

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Teaching Goals: Social Justice Develop positive cultural and social identities: Students develop a cultural competence that enable them to maintain their cultural integrity while succeeding academically. Their home culture, language, and community are rich sources of knowledge, understanding, and actions that can be effectively utilized in learning to read the world. Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Teaching Goals: Mathematics

• Understand the mathematics

• Succeed Academically in Traditional Sense

• Change One’s Orientation toward Math Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Teaching Goals: Mathematics

Succeed Academically in Traditional Sense: Students achieve on standardized tests, pass high school, succeed in college, have access to advanced mathematics courses, and pursue (if they choose) mathematics-related careers. Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Teaching Goals: Mathematics

Change one’s orientation toward mathematics: to seeing mathematics as a powerful and relevant tool for understanding complicated, real-world phenomena rather than a series of disconnected, rote rules to be memorized and regurgitated. Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Funds of knowledge, Informal/everyday mathematics

Conceptual understanding, problem solving, productive disposition, procedural fluency.

Critical Knowledge and Critical Mathematics Knowledge

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Community Knowledge “Ordinary” people produce knowledge about their lives, experiences, contexts

• Funds of Knowledge: “the knowledge base that underlies the productive and exchange activities of households” (e.g. cooking, gardening, sewing, games)

• Informal Math Knowledge: have and produce math knowledge outside of school (e.g. candy sellers, tiendas) Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Critical Knowledge • Critical Mathematical Knowledge: To use mathematics as an analytical tool to understand sociopolitical context of reality • Critical Knowledge in General: knowledge beyond mathematics needed to understand the sociopolitical context. (e.g.multiple histories, structures, policies, and practices that create equity/inequity in society) Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Classical Knowledge • Mathematical power (conceptual understanding, problem solving, procedural fluency)

• Passing the gates (standardized tests, high school, college etc)

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Mathematics Curriculum and Lesson considerations • Integrate and develop all three knowledge bases (Community, Critical, Classical) • Move toward a problem-posing (vs. problemsolving) pedagogy: Teachers and students pose issues/problems that must be tackled intellectually (i.e. mathematically) and through action. Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Analyzing Math Lessons • Teen Boom (secondary) • Understanding Large Numbers (elementary) • Racial Profiling: Driving while Black or Brown (secondary) • Geometry of Inequality (elementary, secondary) Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Teen Boom • Work in pairs/groups • Examine the lesson • Discuss and be prepared to share: How does this lesson include classical knowledge, community knowledge, and critical knowledge? Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Analyzing Math Lessons • Read lesson • Discuss the following: How does this lesson include classical knowledge, community knowledge, and critical knowledge? – Math concepts/skills of lesson – Underlying core principles/purposes of the lesson – Evidence of student learning (what was found or what would you look for) – Benefits and challenges to implementing such a lesson Be prepared to summarize and share your findings Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Generating lesson ideas • What are some ways to gain access to community knowledge? • What are questions you could ask your students that would give you insights/resources for community and critical knowledge? • What are some topics/issues that might be relevant to your students and mathematically rich? Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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Role of Educators in Teaching for Social Justice “We are political militants because we are teachers. Our job is not exhausted in the teaching of math, geography, syntax, history. Our job implies that we teach these subjects with sobriety and competence, but it also requires our involvement in and dedication to overcoming social injustice.” Freire (1998) Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as

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“Mathematics literacy and economic access are how we are going to give hope to the young generation…the ideas of citizenship now requires not only literacy in reading and writing, but literacy in math and science.” Robert P. Moses (Civil Rights leader, Founder of the Algebra Project)

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Center for the Mathematics Education of Latinos/as http://math.arizona.edu/~cemela Julia Aguirre: [email protected] Cynthia Anhalt: [email protected]

National Science Foundation Award No. ESI-0424983

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