What I'm Learning About My Inquiry Question

After beginning our reading and trying to hone down the topic of social justice math to make it pertinent to an urban district, we have settled upon the question that now drives our research and data collection: How can social justice math help connect curriculum to community for students in urban school districts? Specifically, our urban school district of focus is the Newark public schools. Our group took a walking tour of the city, and specifically focused on four high schools, three of which are poor performers in the NCLB arena, and one which is a top performer.

We are beginning our research paper with a discussion of NCLB and its impact upon students, teachers and schools. We tie this discussion in to the Newark schools and their struggles with low test scores and failure to make AYP (adequate yearly progress). The city of Newark is an old city but has a young population compared to the state average. As is the city, its school district is huge and diverse. Its schools run the gamut from high performing to low performing, no matter which benchmarks of performance are applied. The district has been under state takeover for years, and though scores and graduation rates have risen, it’s not enough. Most recently the superintendent of the Newark schools has announced that two poor-performing middle schools will be shut down.

We then discuss the teach-to-the-test curriculum that is driving the Newark Public Schools and other urban districts. The number one goal in the Newark school district’s two-year strategic plan is the improvement of student achievement, defined as “improved test scores.” We have found quite a bit of research that has pinpointed how teach-to-the-test curriculum leaves many students feeling disconnected from and discouraged about the purpose of their classroom efforts.

This leads us to the topic of social justice math, which can help students both “read the world,” in Paulo Freire’s words, as well as become activists for change. I had never heard of social justice math before, and as I read more about it, I feel strongly that it holds great possibilities for giving disenfranchised students a sense of empowerment to understand the world and change it. It is so much more than what we used to call consumer math or life skills math. It’s about looking around and tackling something within the community that affects its residents, attempting to define and analyze it, and look for ways to improve upon the status quo.

I outline this paper on my blog tonight to help me get a clear sense of where we are going. I tend to want to jump right into the topic, but I have learned from my project partners that we can draw connections to important issues in education, such as NCLB, to build our case for using social justice math in the classroom.

So, what have I learned so far? I’ve learned that I have closed my eyes to the real disaster that NCLB is for urban districts such as Newark. Granted NCLB has had an impact in the school district I work in – we were cited for not making yearly adequate progress on test scores and were monitored for two years to bring up those scores. Math in particular always seems to be the biggest struggle in standardized testing. But like good little soldiers we taught to the test, did god knows what to raise the scores, and achieved what our superintendent touts on the website as “high performing school district.”

But ever since reading Jonathan Kozol in my Critical Thinking class at MSU, I am completely convinced that the issue and problem that does not go away in our urban centers is poverty. It’s very hard to deal with day-to-day school issues when kids come to school hungry, live in unsafe neighborhoods and carry the heavy burden of emotional baggage with them every day.

At this point in our research and data collection, I believe that we as teachers need to come out of that ivory tower and teach our students to make real-world connections with their own communities. Why would students care about the theory without the practical application to something they can put their hands on? They need to make that emotional connection. People don’t learn what they don’t care about.