In an ongoing effort to produce the planet's most illiterate generation, public schools are now picking on a topic that – in theory – is the most logical, neutral, objective and non-oppressive subject imaginable: math.
Yes, children are now being spoon-fed “woke” math. According to the Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee (ESAC), under the Seattle (no surprise) Public Schools Superintendent, math is a racist subject used to oppress students.
“The city’s public schools have decided that everything, even mathematics, has to be seen through the lens of oppression and racism,” noted the American Conservative blog.
The school district’s new math guidelines ask such penetrating and unbiased questions as: “What is my mathematical identity?” “Where does power and oppression show up in our math experiences?” “How has math been used to resist and liberate people and communities of color from oppression?” “How is math manipulated to allow inequality and oppression to persist?”
What it doesn’t ask is, “What’s two plus two?”
Correcting an incorrect answer – two plus two equals five, for example – is wrong and “oppressive” under these guidelines, because after all, “who gets to say if an answer is right?” (“I think the answer is supposed to be the white, cis-gendered, heterosexual Christian man,” snarks Jason Rantz, an afternoon host on KTTH radio in Seattle.)
The fact is, Seattle public schools – and no doubt numerous other “woke” school districts as well – are deliberately cultivating math illiteracy in their students, which leads to disadvantages in life. Why isn’t this oppressive?
Studies from England “concluded that numeracy was a bigger indicator of negative outcomes than literacy. … There is a strong correlation between lack of numeracy and multiple disadvantages. … People with poor numeracy are twice as likely to be unemployed while 65 per cent of young people in jail have the lowest levels of numeracy.”
According to the College Fix, advocates for Seattle’s “woke” math curriculum “contend ethnic studies can increase attendance rates and GPAs, because students ‘see themselves’ in the curriculum. They cite a single study as evidence. They also say other studies show ‘black and brown students’ don’t see themselves going into math and science-related fields, and this is why studying people’s identity is ‘so core.’”
Whoa, back up there! These educators claim “‘black and brown students’ don’t see themselves going into math and science-related fields”? On what planet? Apparently these educators think “black and brown” students are too dumb to study math, so they may as well teach them victimology instead of the correct sum of two and two, thus assuring “black and brown” students will forever be excluded from STEM fields. So who’s racist here? If your skin is dark, two plus two never equals four.
Somehow I think it’s more oppressive and, yes, racist, to deliberately teach math illiteracy, thus setting these students up for future failure. Just another crystal-clear example of how progressives try to divide this nation into subgroups defined by melanin content.
“Power and oppression, as defined by ethnic studies, are the ways in which individuals and groups define mathematical knowledge so as to see ‘Western’ mathematics as the only legitimate expression of mathematical identity and intelligence,” the guidelines inform us. “This definition of legitimacy is then used to disenfranchise people and communities of color. This erases the historical contributions of people and communities of color.”
(Side note: Most “people of color” who are attending American public schools are Americans. America is a Western nation. If they want to learn another form of math – Northern, Southern or Eastern – why do they expect to learn it in America?)
But in a broader sense, I’m confused about something. Why are they doing this? Does the Seattle public school system honestly think “woke” math will help its students succeed in life? Will it make them more employable? More competent? Will it help them balance a checkbook or figure out a tip in a restaurant?
"Eventually, bridges are going to start falling down," said Jason Rantz. "That too will be the fault of Whiteness."
Math has always been subject to tweaking in public schools. The satirical songwriter and mathematician Tom Lehrer famously poked fun at this trend back in 1965. (You have GOT to watch this hilarious YouTube video to see what I mean). But math as racist? That’s a new one, even by social justice warrior standards.
But this “woke” math has a purpose, according to Jarrett Stepman. “[W]hile this sort of curriculum will leave students with little actual knowledge or understanding of how to do math, it certainly serves a purpose: to radicalize young people with tales of oppression and groom them to be future social justice warriors themselves.”
If you ever doubted public schools have become nothing more than indoctrination centers for the extreme left, just look at “woke” math. These kids will graduate not knowing how much two plus two is, and by golly it’s all because of racism.
“The message is that empowerment comes not from cultivating useful knowledge and abilities, but through social protest and community organizing,” Stepman continues. “Woke math is simply the latest and perhaps silliest expression of a larger agenda to turn young Americans against their country and fellow citizens, to fill them with grievance, and convince them that their key to a perfect future is through socialism. Of course, it may be a challenge to build a green socialist utopia of high-speed rail without basic math or engineering skills, but those are mere details.”
Yeah, darn those pesky collapsed pedestrian bridges built by social justice warriors rather than competent engineers. How racist.
Until further notice, two plus two equals four in places as diverse as China, New Zealand, Chile, Greenland, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and about 190 other countries. Only in America is that absolute questioned.
And then we wonder why public school students score rock bottom on international mathematics tests. Two plus two always equals four, no matter how you feeeeeel about it.
Homeschool, folks, homeschool. It’s the only way to escape the madness.
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