Why Don’t Black kids like math?


Learning is funny. There is an entire realm of things to know out there in the real world. Yet until you start looking, it is so easy to gloss over all of those things.  I started looking with a more  critical eye at the world and at my own practices, and realized that I was not meeting my own objectives of inclusiveness and change. This post is an extension of my last post: My Critical Pedagogy / Theory Journey.

Early this week, Adisa Banjoko and Arash Daneshzadeh posted an article named: Why Don’t The Black Kids Like Math and Science?: Easy Answers. I was intrigued. They promised easy answers, and I doubted there were any such things. I suggest everyone read the article. I will have my learning pre-service teachers read it this semester as well.

easy-button

Have you read their article? Go do it. It is worth it. Just promise you will come back.

There are two paragraphs that explained  teaching pedagogy I want to point out.

I explained to one of the math teachers, a White female, how crucial this was. “If your students are mostly Latino then you need to tell them about how the Mayans invented the concept of the zero several hundred years before the people of India and they had no contact.” I talked about how Aztec and Mayan architecture is something that should be used to as a cultural bridge for them to understand their legacy in math and science.

Her vacant eyes she blinked in hollow despair “But I don’t know all that stuff.” Her unwillingness to pursue new racial and cultural paths to math told me she was not interested. She still struggles to keep her students engaged to this day. via (Emphasis mine.)

Ms. Banjoko and Mr. Daneshzadeh give resources that will take any teacher from zero to … well, not a hero but at least a sidekick, pretty quickly. There are so many resources offered in the post that it will take me hours to read them all, but I am in the process of doing just that.

But, think about the teacher in the quote above. “Her unwillingness to pursue a new racial and cultural path…” Ouch. How many teachers are willing to take on the task of teaching content AND teaching culture? That is the problem the White female teacher in the post had. This teacher defined her job as only teaching math.

Her job, my job, is not to teach math, it is to teach PEOPLE. What is the best way to teach people? Well, it depends upon the person, really. That is the point.

The New Teacher Center created this meme several weeks ago. I saved it because it spoke to me.

3 habits

Why? Because of the statements embedded in it. “Seek growth opportunities, take responsibility for learning.” Hmm, the White teacher above did neither. They had an opportunity to grow AND take the responsibility for learning by learning themselves. That is a no brainer.

“Take risks and try new strategies.” Holy Hell Batman, the authors of the article handed the teacher a new strategy laid out in detail. The White teacher above walked away.

Ms. Banjoko and Mr. Daneshzadeh promised easy answers in their post. I am not confident the answers are easy. I think it takes a lot of work to learn about the individuals who are in my classroom. I think that work is mandatory, however. It is part of teaching people. It is part of leading while following, to paraphrase Freire.

If we want to have classroom where we are not subjugating the learners, where we are not oppressing them and holding them back from learning, we need to start celebrating them and giving them back the power that has been stripped away from them.

Reading the multitude of links provided by Ms. Banjoko and Mr. Daneshzadeh is a first step. Learning how that applies to the learners in the room with you? That is a great second.


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