Our inquiry project led us to explore how Social Justice Math can connect curriculum to the community for students in urban districts. As we wrap up our research and synthesize our findings, I am struck by the connection between the disaster of No Child Left Behind, “teaching to the test” and the struggles of inner city districts. The lower the scores on so-called high-stakes tests in a district, the more that district’s curriculum is hyper-focused on teaching to the test. This limits, and often eliminates, possibilities for creative curriculum, project-based learning, and genuine student-directed inquiry and exploration. “Teaching to the test” is NEVER student-driven. It is completely teacher-directed.
By exploring the neighborhoods surrounding several of the public high schools in Newark, we began to notice something we would never have seen had we never left the classroom (or the computer). We saw a pattern of types of businesses clustered in certain areas: check cashing, fast food, flat tire fix, mom-and-pop grocery store… As one of my project partners put it, “rinse and repeat.”
What started out as something peculiar and funny to us developed into a concern for the availability of certain businesses in poorer urban areas. Our lesson/unit was built upon developing awareness of this pattern, documentation of specifics through math applications, and comparisons with more affluent areas. The ultimate goal of this unit of lessons, and any social justice curriculum, is to empower students to act upon what they learn.
I learned that real-world curriculum is just a starting point. Social justice math is one way to bring the real world into the curriculum. Social justice-oriented teaching inverts the curriculum, as the author of "Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way" stated. It takes the emphasis off improving standardized test scores and puts the emphasis on the needs and interests of the students. Students can delve into issues in their own communities that impact directly upon their lives, with the ultimate goal of agency. What did we learn? What changes need to be made? How can we become a part of that change?
Back in the olden days, there was a saying: If you are not a part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
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If you guys have not checked out the work of the Algebra project and Bob Moses, you really should. He wrote a book called "Radical Equations." Moses was a leader in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s. He's worth listening to.
ReplyDeleteWe did look at his work; in fact some of our citations are from Radical Equations. However, while elements of the Algebra Project fall in line with Social Justice Math, Moses's work isn't really the same thing. The Algebra Project sees Math literacy as a civil right, same as Social Justice Math, and both seek to "level playing field." But that's where things change.
ReplyDeleteThe Algebra Project is concerned more with devising and implementing innovative means to teach abstract concepts of mathematics. While constructivist in nature, it's closer to the traditional curriculum.
Social Justice Math, on the other hand, is more about finding and using the mathematics in real-life, social issues. It's very similar to Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way, but is concerned more with Middle Grades and Secondary School Math (and less so on the other disciplines in the curricula).
So again, they're both similar ideas that strive for the same, but they accomplish those means in very different ways.