WTF? Ethnomathematics

[Aristotle]

This is unbelieveable. No wonder we are sucking eggs compared to the rest of the world in math and science.

Ethnomathematics. Even math education is being politicized.

In a comparison of a 1973 algebra textbook and a 1998 "contemporary mathematics" textbook, Williamson Evers and Paul Clopton found a dramatic change in topics. In the 1973 book, for example, the index for the letter "F" included factors, factoring, fallacies, finite decimal, finite set, formulas, fractions and functions. In the 1998 book, the index listed families (in poverty data), fast food nutrition data, fat in fast food, feasibility study, feeding tours, ferris wheel, fish, fishing, flags, flight, floor plan, flower beds, food, football, Ford Mustang, franchises and fund-raising carnival.

...

Now mathematics is being nudged into a specifically political direction by educators who call themselves "critical theorists." They advocate using mathematics as a tool to advance social justice. Social justice math relies on political and cultural relevance to guide math instruction. One of its precepts is "ethnomathematics," that is, the belief that different cultures have evolved different ways of using mathematics, and that students will learn best if taught in the ways that relate to their ancestral culture. From this perspective, traditional mathematics--the mathematics taught in universities around the world--is the property of Western civilization and is inexorably linked with the values of the oppressors and conquerors. The culturally attuned teacher will learn about the counting system of the ancient Mayans, ancient Africans, Papua New Guineans and other "nonmainstream" cultures.

How about we teach normal math and let people who decide to study advanced math in college bother with Mayan mathematics. Is that too much to ask?

[Belaraiya]

I know in high school I had a hard enough time with main stream maths, and I was stuck in the 'assisted learning' class (the morons class with a nice name). Can you imagine the confusion that this will put kids through? Granted, some will pick it up easily, but the kids like me who had a hard enough time learning how to figure out an area of a square are going to be left behind.

Why can they just take learning back to a level of simplicity and as Ari said, leave all this learning that goes off onto a tangent for those who have a genuine interest in it at a higher level.

As my mum put it (she works as a teachers aide) 'If the kid can't even add up a column of two digit numbers, what use is it teaching them how an ancient civilization did it? I can barely understand the mayan system, what chance does a child who needs a calculator to add two numbers have?'

I love the way she looked at me as she said this

[tharun]

Do you think children should learn roman numerals? Its very useful when watching the credits at the end of tv shows/movies to find out when a show was made. Also sometimes in books that label chapters or sections with roman numerals.

I was surprised some of the kids I taught in Korea knew roman numerals.. at least for western kids its the same alphabet we're used to.. even though we usually use those hindu-arabic numerals for numbers. But Korean kids apparantely learn the roman numerals too.

On a side note, is there anywhere in the world that DOESN'T use the hindu-arabic numerals (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) as their primary number system now? They seem to have conquered the world pretty well. I know you can write numbers in chinese characters and so forth.. but when they're doing business they use the arabic numerals we all know. So does anywhere with like.. electricity and stuff.. use any other system to record numbers for business purposes, and conduct math classes in schools etc?

-tharun

[Jozep]

If people from other cultures have such a hard time with our math, why is my finite mathematics class filled with Chinese kids?

[tharun]

Originally posted by Jozep
If people from other cultures have such a hard time with our math, why is my finite mathematics class filled with Chinese kids?

My God.

I had to look up that 'finite mathematics' thing on the infobahn. That brings up memories of every bad maths class ever. Apart from a few things.. they're either things I never learned or must have been so horrific I don't recall studying them. Math is so the worst subject in the world ever, for me.

-tharun