Day: February 11, 2016
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. –John Dewey
People are aware that they cannot continue in the same old way but are immobilized because they cannot imagine an alternative. -Grace Lee Boggs
Over the course of the year, our Social Justice Math study group has been hard at work, trying to figure out what it means to be a math educator with a social justice lens.
There are many approaches to this question, from looking at math literacy as a civil rights issue, to understanding how culturally relevant pedagogy impacts student achievement, to integrating economic and social justice issues into our classrooms, among others.
Regardless of where we land on the question of what social justice math is, it has become more clear with each conversation that math education through the experiential lens of working-class communities of color is an essential principle of education if our goal is to grow a self-determined, powerful human force to continue to evolve the way we live as humans in today’s society.
Grace Lee Boggs was an “evolutionary” who worked for a lifetime in Detroit to address the systemic injustices that the city’s residents have experienced through the years. She posited that “the community itself with its needs and problems must become the curriculum of the schools,” where learning is not just about skills and information, but the ideas, principles, and struggles needed to transform their community.
Want to know what this might look like? Check out Max Ray’s talk on how math teachers are the key to ending racism. Or see how Rico Gutstein and a group of 9th graders analyzed a Chicago redistricting proposal that could have resulted in upheaval and increased racial tensions for the students and families living in the neighborhood. Or listen to Saraswati Noel share about Seattle World School’s campaign to lock down a permanent school site after bouncing from location to location for years.
How would it look in your classroom? How different would your school be if the community was an active asset and participant rather than an occasional resource? How are you educating for social justice in your math class?
For more information on the Social Justice Math study group, see our site at socialjusticemath.acoe.org or contact Celine Liu, Math Specialist at cliu (at) acoe.org.
How about 200 prompts? “200 Prompts for Argumentative Writing” from the New York Times offers a categorized assortment of prompts that will serve to inspire and excite inquisitive minds. Each prompt is coupled with context and information, giving what the Buck Institute of Education calls Voice and Choice to our students. Happy writing!
-Maria Vlahiotis, Literacy Specialist, ACOE Core Learning
“Newsela is an innovative way to build reading comprehension with nonfiction that’s always relevant: daily news. Newsela makes it easy for an entire class to read the same content, but at a level that’s just right for each student.”
They have high-interest current events, and they post new articles daily, all at 5 different lexiles, aligned to the Common Core-aligned standards. Many even have quizzes already created! Articles are arranged into 8 categories for ease of use. It’s completely free. You can upgrade to the Pro version and add features like class tracking, annotation capability, and many others.
Either way, give it a look, you won’t be disappointed! Click here or on the image above to see for yourself! And happy close reading!