Critical Race Theory

Can you blame them? :wink:

The NYT has an article today:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/22/us/florida-rejected-textbooks.html

They provide a link to the FL website that gives the one survey/polynomial example above.

They did their own research and found “In most of the books, there was little that touched on race, never mind an academic framework like critical race theory.”

The issue is Social Emotional Learning. I thought I posted this example from a Houghton Mifflin textbook on the GA:

image

Into Math emphasizes effort in learning to reignite your students’ beliefs that they’re unstoppable. From embedded growth mindset tasks and explicit social-emotional instruction that support students in building critical thinking skills, to independent learning activities that encourage productive perseverance, Into Math transforms mathematics fear into mathematics enthusiasm.

The Times article says that, at one time, conservatives thought that teaching “character” was a good thing.

Maybe encouraging kids to be kind and empathetic is turning them into liberals.

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Yep, wrong type of “character”.

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I don’t see why this belongs in a math textbook. Is this “Reflect” section similar to the State Math Problem of yesteryear? I could give 40 answers, and even some of them would be PC!

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I wonder if the Jr. High Science curriculum that my school uses would be allowed. It’s free, so not really much of a budget issue though.

https://www.openscied.org/

Note: Most of the teachers in the district do not like this curriculum. It has been really hard to pull off in a Jr. High setting. I think it could be great in elementary school. I’ve been trying really hard to make it work (I might be one of the only ones in the district doing so - the 8th grade teachers in my school haven’t done much with it, but there are extenuating circumstances…)

Pretty much all of the teacher’s editions for the lessons have several comments about “attending to equity” - mostly about making sure each student is understanding. Sometimes it brings up some cultural things that should be considered.

For example, our unit on ecosystems centered around oil palm plantations in Indonesia and their impact on orangutans. In one of the early lessons there was a section to take 10 minutes or so and unpack potential negative feelings students might have toward the word “plantation”. The unit mostly switched over to use the word “farm”, but some of the readings and videos referred to them as plantation.

Looks like the Asian kid is helping the Hispanic kid. Conservatives would normally be nodding their heads at this stereotypical racism instead of shaking their heads.

“Turning curiosity into learning”??
I think the other way around might be better.
Naturally curious kids are begging to learn things. It is the non-curious ones that need to learn, and then start to get curious.
Disclaimer: I’m no teacher.

Most text books contain odds and ends that aren’t strictly related to how to succeed on the state test. It makes them a little less dry and boring. If the math text is mostly touchy feely stuff, and doesn’t contain the math it’s supposed to teach, that’s a problem. If it has a couple of cute pictures of kids supporting each other… :man_shrugging: that seems like a dumb reason to rule it out.

showing each other what…

Typo fixed

Don’t say it

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The American is helping the American.

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Ah, no, those are the two examples I’m talking about. The 1st two pictures are from the same section of a math book and the other two look like they go together as well. Basically it’s two examples.

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Eh, potaytoh, puh-tah-toh.

I’m not familiar with the “state math problem of yesteryear”.

Regarding this page, I’d have trouble answering the first question. My response is “It looks like they are playing a game”. Somehow, I think the authors are looking for more. I could handle the second question.

The paragraph in my post that you didn’t copy provides some clues. I hadn’t heard of “Social Emotional Learning” until I read the FL news release. Someone, I think here, gave me a hand (they sensed I needed help). So I’ve got this: Fundamentals of SEL - CASEL Note the “Dive into the research” button.

I get kind of dizzy looking at all the generalizations there. I would like some stuff that is more concrete.

But, I’m sure my teachers taught some SEL: Take turns, share, don’t hit, don’t ridicule, work hard, don’t cheat, …

Teaching the “whole child” goes back to Socrates. I’m sure I learned about John Dewey’s philosophy:

Dewey makes a strong case for the importance of education not only as a place to gain content knowledge, but also as a place to learn how to live. In his eyes, the purpose of education should not revolve around the acquisition of a pre-determined set of skills, but rather the realization of one’s full potential and the ability to use those skills for the greater good.

OTOH, it does look kind of weird to see this little thing just hanging there in a math book, probably between a couple pages of simple fractions. I assume the proponents would say it should be “integrated” throughout.

No, I can see why they wouldn’t be happy with that section and I don’t think it’s the end of the world to strike it from the approved list. The other example is dumb though and if it’s the 2nd worst of all the books they put on the bad list, then most of the bad list is stupid.

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This was a puzzling problem from the AO where many people wasted many hours trying to answer.

Some things I notice about the children: they’re not masked or distanced, they’re both smiling, and they’re not dead.

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Presumably, you thought your post exhibits wit.