Profs help push program claim is math 'racist'; it requires a 'right answer'
campusreform.org
campusreform.org
From the site:
> As a conservative watchdog to the nation’s higher education system, Campus Reform exposes liberal bias and abuse on the nation’s college campuses.
The likelihood this is accurate is very low.
If you s/math/logic then you kind of see the criticism. I haven’t taught math, but this type of distraction motivates me to recommend individual study even more.
I would not want to drive over a bridge designed by, or in a car designed by, ethnomathematics.
It's just good teaching to highlight these ambiguous cases because they do happen in the real world when talking about mathematics.
Some ambiguities are general, but some are also aligned with racial/cultural/linguistic backgrounds. E.g. double negatives.
There exists a mathematical language to unambiguously specify these differences, but we don't make kids read the principia mathematica for a reason.
That's a great example and teaches about race conditions too! But there's still a finite set of correct answers, and without showing working there's no way to teach them. And for all I know, this question might not work in languages other than English and isn't that one of the points of this whole exercise...
The focus is only on getting the “right” answer. The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so. Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.“
Please note that this material is meant for 6,7,8 year teachers. My opinion is that the people who wrote this are not involving mathematicians for some reason.