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Well, I don't think she is an actual mathematician because she is a so-called "math education" professor. Her audiences should comprise of math-phobic teachers with low level competence in mathematics and an even lower competence in mathematical history. She is just trying to get attention and sell books. Just the fact that she is lumping all minorities together despite the actual exceptional performance of Asian American students is suspect.
Well, I don't think she is an actual mathematician because she is a so-called "math education" professor. Her audiences should comprise of math-phobic teachers with low level competence in mathematics and an even lower competence in mathematical history. She is just trying to get attention and sell books. Just the fact that she is lumping all minorities together despite the actual exceptional performance of Asian American students is suspect.
So, you agree that math is inherently racist, right?
That B.A. (instead of a B.S.) means that she opted for a "traditional liberal arts degree with a curriculum based across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities."
...So?
I buy your argument that this piece is not based on the work of a bona fide mathematician. But I resent your implication that a B.A. is not a valid degree, or that it nullifies the degree's "STEM-y-ness". I'm also not stoked about the way you've apparently linked this person's possession of a B.A. with her status as an "ignorant person."
(I have a B.A. in physics and my spouse has a B.A. in biochemistry. We both have authorship on published research; he has a graduate degree. My classmates who graduated with me in physics, from our liberal arts college that did not offer a B.S., have gone on to pursue engineering, several PhDs, some PhD/MDs, a PhD/JD...the liberal arts core that defined the "A" in our "B.A." served to enhance the STEM in our education, not to dilute it.)
Anyway the site that hosts this article is suspect, the purpose of the article's author is clearly political in nature, and I think the whole thing is a load of hooey. Read the original source and weigh in on that if you must, but I personally have no intent of making any judgment based only on this absurdly biased piece of "journalism."
That B.A. (instead of a B.S.) means that she opted for a "traditional liberal arts degree with a curriculum based across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities."
...So?
I buy your argument that this piece is not based on the work of a bona fide mathematician. But I resent your implication that a B.A. is not a valid degree, or that it nullifies the degree's "STEM-y-ness". I'm also not stoked about the way you've apparently linked this person's possession of a B.A. with her status as an "ignorant person."
My classmates who graduated with me in physics, from our liberal arts college that did not offer a B.S....
I think you misunderstood me. I didn't say that a BA isn't a valid degree. My point was that her degree doesn't qualify her to judge a STEM field because she lacks knowledge of the field. i stand by what I said, with the evidence being the ignorance of her remarks.
Moreover, Stanford does offer a B.S. in biology. The B.A. program she was in is lightweight on science compared to a science B.S. at Stanford. That's just a fact.
A huge problem with educators is that many of them labor under the Dunning-Kruger effect, in that they claim expertise where they simply and manifestly don't have it. Claims about de-emphasizing the number pi or the Pythagorean theorem because they "perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans" is a case in point. Personally, I can't see how someone who understands mathematics, even at a high school level, can make a statement like that with a straight face. Worse, the deep and painful irony is that she didn't even bother to look at the HISTORY.
Read the original source and weigh in on that if you must, but I personally have no intent of making any judgment based only on this absurdly biased piece of "journalism."
Good point. Her book is easy to find on Google books. The bits I read are rambling, unfocused, and lack support. Example:
Quote
The way mathematics operates in our world and the politics that mathematics brings are important for MTEs to consider. On many levels, mathematics itself operates as Whiteness. Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as White. School mathematics curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans. Perhaps more importantly, mathematics with unearned privilege in society, just like Whiteness. Mathematics is viewed as so pure that it has become the discipline by which we measure other disciplines. See for example the XKCD comic (n.d.) that depicts mathematicians as so far removed from other disciplines that they hardly recognize other scientists.
She's using a comic book as a source --- to support a stereotype with no basis in reality? And what does a stereotype have to do with any point she was trying to make? Like I said earlier, someone please throw water on the burning stupid.
One difference between old and current math textbooks is that the older books would have one-page biographies of great mathematicians, such as Newton, Gauss, and Euler. Highlighting too many Dead White Men is now politically incorrect.
If you want your children to know about famous mathematicians and scientists, you will need to provide your own materials.
One difference between old and current math textbooks is that the older books would have one-page biographies of great mathematicians, such as Newton, Gauss, and Euler. Highlighting too many Dead White Men is now politically incorrect.
If you want your children to know about famous mathematicians and scientists, you will need to provide your own materials.
Well...restricting biographies to dead white guys would be a gross misrepresentation of the history of mathematics --- which, of course, is the point of this thread.
Various Wikipedia pages list dozens of eminent mathematicians from Egypt, China, India, Persia, Mexico (Maya, etc.), and so on.
IMO, if math books don't have those biographies these days, it's because they're "too boring," not because they'd have to be populated by dead white guys (and a few dead white chicks).
But you have fed nicely into the point of the ignorant person who I quoted above.
The OP article is terrible and stupid, but it didn't emerge in a vacuum. It's a reaction to something very real, that has been going on for a very long time, that is terrible and stupid.
The real solution here is to identify that the Texas Board of Education is unqualified to make decisions, override them with national curriculum standards that are more firmly grounded in reality, and bring a more comprehensive approach to math history that acknowledges the outstanding contributions of the many cultures involved.
Funnily enough, we already have national math standards, so it should be pretty easy to pull off in this specific case. All we have to do is follow the process already in place to amend the standards.
