Author: Eric Gutstein
Source: Mathematical Thinking and Learning , 8.3 (2006):331-358.
Gutstein, the author, explores and clarifies the opinions toward to mathematics programs for social justice from the view of Latino/a parents. He implemented four “real world” projects which invite the students to use mathematics and think/analyze the real problems in the world such as product cost of weapons, poverty and wealth, and discrimination of mortgage. His school district holds the high proportion of Latino/s and most of the parents are low income and their mother tongue is Spanish. In this article, he conducted the interviews with 10 Latino/s parents and summarized their voices.
In short, the Latino/a parents want their
children to understand, through education (including mathematics), about the
discrimination, injustice and disadvantage which they faced and experienced in
the society. Furthermore, the parents believe their children need to know that people
who belong to the marginalized community have to defend them by themselves in
the above society. In terms of mathematics, the parents see “mathematics as an
integrated part of life” (p.352) and have a flexible idea to understand the
role of mathematics in life such as different interest rates among races. The
purpose of education for the Latino/a students, their parents think, should be
preparation for the above injustice world while the parents agree with the
conventional purpose of education. Finally, the parents advocate the
educational programs that the author provided to their children, and they do
not believe those programs are propagandized.
As I see the voices of the Latino/a parents
in this article, their voices seem to be premised on their marginalization.
They emphasis on the way how marginalized community members survive in the
suppressed society rather they try to solve this inequity circumstance. I
suppose, to reduce this problem, the majority groups should learn social
justice from the perspective of the minority groups to change the unbalanced
society.
Although the voices involve little mathematics
contents in this article, his programs are very interesting to me. These
programs enable all students, even who do not like mathematics or are not good
at mathematics, to participate the mathematical activities. Therefore, they can
feel mathematics as a part of life, can recover their confidence toward to
mathematics, and can find the own motivation to study mathematics. As I
mentioned above, participation of dominant groups is necessary to reduce the
problem of inequity, thus the participants in those programs should be mixture
of all groups. In this case, I am curious about the responses to the program
for social justice that both majority groups and minority groups have, and
balance between their power: majority vs minority.
Question:
Considering several reasons: increasing teachers’
burden, national curriculum, limitation of time etc., do you think it is
possible to involve social justice contents in regular mathematics class realistically?
How can we include them in mathematics
class?
I can see the challenge of integrating social justice in math classrooms, partially due to resistance from teachers as you mentioned. For myself, another part of the challenge comes from my experiences. It is quite commonly noted that education should prepare students for the real world I cannot quite justify the notion. It reminds me of the story of the blind men and the elephant. I consistently find that teachers from different cultural backgrounds are in complete disagreement in many issues: animal cruelty, poverty, gender differences. One of the reasons of the disagreement traces back to family upbringing and personal experiences. In other words, we are all blind people in terms of the “real world”. I am with Wagner’s view that much caution should be given when we direct students’ vision how want them to see. Problem-based learning seems more appropriate for such integration as it affords multiple perspectives during discussions and collaboration, and reduces social influence from a knowledgeable teacher. However, the choice of “social injustice” and “principles of social justice” requires further consideration.
ReplyDeleteI think that if social justice is a topic that the teacher feels passionate about and feels it is is valuable, that you make the time. It would not become a burden if you “bought into” the program. I have seen teachers use their prep time, their break time, their lunch time, etc, for things they are passionate about because it is important to them. Social justice is a program that would take some time to implement: to get the teacher trained and familiar with the strategies, problems and solutions, and to get the students familiar with and comfortable with the process. Once the program was integrated into the classroom, mathematics or language or PE or music, it would not be a time “waster” and could be practiced quickly and efficiently. But I agree that it would take a lot of support, not only from the teacher, but also from the school and its administrators.
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