Hacker News Reader

"The first document just says that teachers should be aware of the effect that the history of racism has on their students and how to actively counter these effects. I really do not see how any of this is controversial."

I don't see how anyone could read that document and come to that conclusion.

"requiring perfectionism from your students is idiotic in a pedagogical setting."

And what does that have to do with 'White Supremacy'?

Where is your evidence that this is the nature of math teaching?

Where is your evidence that something else would be materially more beneficial for students of colour?

I'd would be interesting to see, but I think on the face of it it's kind of ridiculous.

They need to provide some objective evidence of 'how math is racist' - and - how other, specific training methods are 'less racist' - or this document should be held up as ideological fantasy.

I partially answered in sibling comments, you asked about my qualification to make these claims and about proof of some the statements I made about methodologies: I have taught some of the introductory and some of the most advanced classes in Physics/Engineering/ML as an assistant at Yale and at MIT. The practices I discussed are standard operating procedure at these schools and have been for a while (without worries about racism even being much of a considerations, they are just good practices). These standard procedures are based on a few decades of pedagogical research. I have also prepared students for the International Physics Olympiad for multiple years. I am very involved in the education of young physicists with many great achievements. This is what I am basing my empirical observations on (including large amounts of anonymous feedback from students and results from standardized tests and competitions).

You keep talking about good math pedagogical practice without talking about its relation to white supremacy. When you do that, you're neglecting the primary substance of the training document.

Are you interested in talking about the ways in which the outlined pedagogical practices relate to white supremacy?

Also, when asked about how asians and indian americans fit into the discussion, your reply is that the bigotry they've faced is far more tolerable? That's the leading thought of how they fit into the discussion?

> You keep talking about good math pedagogical practice without talking about its relation to white supremacy.

On the contrary, the first thing I said is that one of the first of the five documents says that "teachers should be aware of their implicit biases". Do I need to specifically use the words "white supremacy". Yeah, "white supremacy" is one of the most common vehicle for racism in the US (this seemed pretty obvious).

Here, in a single sentence, just repeating what my previous comments say: "these documents list non-controversial pedagogical best practices that just happen to be more important when dealing with people who have suffered from institutionalized racism (frequently described with the words white supremacy)".

> Are you interested in talking about the ways in which the outlined pedagogical practices relate to white supremacy?

My whole point is that these practices are great independently of whether you live in a country where any form of racism or segragation exists or if you live in a small homogenic country that does not have these problem. It just happens that they are even more important in the former case.

> when asked about how asians and indian americans fit into the discussion, your reply is that the bigotry they've faced is far more tolerable?

I have made no such claim!? Different groups have faced different challenges and that leads to different societal problems. Seems silly to start a misery Olympics and discuss which of the terrible things are more terrible.

> I have made no such claim!? Different groups have faced different challenges and that leads to different societal problems. Seems silly to start a misery Olympics and discuss which of the terrible things are more terrible.

I'm not sure what you think it means when you reply by asking us to compare black tropes to asian tropes. Some of the asian tropes going around now are related to spreading the "chinese" virus, and being spies that steal IP, or students who cheat.

> Cantor's obsessions at the end of his life and Goedel's incompleteness theorem would be a great starting point for an essay on the limits of objectivity in math.

Separately, it sounds like from your teaching experience you've mostly been dealing with kids who would really enjoy the foundations of math and physics, and may enjoy discussing how things are true only within a model, and how even that model has trouble making judgments over some sentences. But for everyone else that's a lot of explanation without firepower.

I teach in a model classroom for a math franchise that deals with the age range in question for this document — not college aged kids in MIT. When you're teaching youths, not delivering a story and feeling of firepower is deadly. It is not like college where the failure to learn is their fault.

I also evaluate competitor products domestic and abroad, and I would critique them for the same issues mentioned in this training document, that their product is far more rote, authoritarian, linear, etc. But I would never imagine that, say, a largely imported korean or singaporean product would have notable relationships with white supremacy just because they emphasized rote learning, linear sequencing, an either-or concept of truth, etc.

I think it's completely fine to have a discussion about how some attitudes and styles in math pedagogy are destructive to student motivation, but these arguments of white supremacy ought be better substantiated. The leading arguments so far have been extremely unimpressive, and IMO there could be a more general backlash due to the loss of credibility.

Your last (edit: second-to-last) paragraph is the first time in this whole conversation that I get what you guys are talking about. I think you are misreading the document. It says that "there is only one right way" is a trope frequently used by white supremacist philosophies, not that the presence of that trope implies the presence of white supremacist philosophies. I feel like getting hung up on this is just silly and overly "snowflaky", when the document as a whole has so many great suggestions on how to be a better teacher.

One other important comment:

> But for everyone else that's a lot of explanation without firepower.

This is a deeply wrong idea that leads to poorly skilled engineers and scientists and I would die on this hill. You are giving your students too little credit if you think they would not be interested when this is taught properly (e.g. by following the instructions in this document). This is exactly the firepower you need to have exceptional skills.

"Are you interested in talking about the ways in which the outlined pedagogical practices relate to white supremacy?"

Well that's just it - please do tell us how 'Math is White Supremacy' - because there is no rational or scientific evidence provided, and without evidence, it seems like radical, ideological, racist, offensive and likely very counterproductive.

Teaching can always be improved, even in ways that are adaptive to different groups, but there's nothing offered here that's material in that way.

This kind of discussion is interesting, but it should be far away from government or social policy.

I am getting really confused, guys... These documents do not say anywhere "Math is White Supremacy", you are the only ones saying this. You are saying that these documents say things they simply do not say at all.

Maybe "white supremacy" is a trigger word for some people. Would this discussion work better if we just say "historic, institutionalized racism" instead of "white supremacy"?

> On the topic of "perfectionism" -- requiring perfectionism from your students is idiotic in a pedagogical setting.

For a subject which requires completely logically sound arguments to be correct (formal math), perfectionism isn't idiotic, it's the modus operandi.

That has little bearing to *teaching* math. In teaching, perfection is little more than rote memorization. In teaching, you have to explore your errors and understand why they are happening. And in research math, some of the greatest insights come from encountering the errors in your own proofs. Yes, the final result is "perfect". Expecting the process (and especially the learning of the process) to be perfect is idiotic.