Yeah, that seems like an unduly divisive example for a simple introduction to graphs.
But i agree the other example is dumb. And the NYT researched the books that were rejected, and most seem to have been rejected due to “social emotional learning”, which, according to its critics “softens kids”. Apparently it’s bad to teach kids to be empathetic, and to be aware of their emotions, and to support each other.
I mean, seriously, i know lots of people with kids. I don’t know a single kid who was totally isolated from other kids. There certainly were never any laws in the US requiring that.
And if you think “wearing a mask” amounts to “total isolation” you are deluded. I hung out with friends for 3 hours last night, wearing masks. It was a very social event. With, like, empathy and laughter and all those soft emotions.
Sorry, I’m a little dyslexic and misplaced the “total” in your post.
I still think you are deluded if you think anywhere in the US was requiring kids to be isolated from each other. And if you think masks prevent kids from socializing with each other.
I also think this has nothing to do with critical race theory, so if you want continue this argument, i suggest a new thread. Feel free to link to it here.
I think if my kids were virtual through the end of 21, id be pretty turned off with covid restrictions and maybe even masks. My school district has kept a pretty good balance that I was happy with.
Okay, maybe “isolating” was a little hyperbolic, but I think you’re deluded if you think school closures, forced masking, distancing, silent lunches, and two years of conditioning kids to view themselves & their peers primarily as disease vectors haven’t had any deleterious effects on kids’ SEL.
But getting back to the main topic (or at least the Florida drift), for some reason it seems that some conservatives (eg FL) are conflating CRT & SEL.
I am all for helping kids develop empathy & cooperation, but for some reason I still find it weird to put that in a math textbook. As I posted above, imo, the SEL example they showed is not so egregious as to justify outright rejection of that textbook, but it still is a little weird to me to have that be a “math lesson.”
The example of “let’s fit a polynomial to this bar graph of [fictional?] poll data showing conservatives are super-racist” does cross the line. Using a “polynomial model” to teach polynomials might be the more egregious part imo.
I think critical race theory offers a lot of valuable insights. But random accusations that conservatives are racist aren’t critical race theory and more importantly, are completely inappropriate in a math textbook. And yeah, the underlying math isn’t even any good.
They were right not to approve that textbook.
But if the only other example of “bad stuff” they could find was some fuzzy stuff about children helping each other in a math book, I’m dubious about their overall decision-making.
I expect that they really did ban books only due to multiple pages and half page boxes with things like that. I posted one above from Houghton Mifflin.
My spouse is a teacher and we had a teacher couple over this weekend. This topic came up. The talk from them, as I understand it, is this sort of content is a result of No Child Left Behind and Common Core. There is a concept in Common Core whereby each subject must be inclusive of other subjects. In addition, a basic principle is that students that are strong in a subject will help the students that are weaker in the subject. This specific example appears to be an attempt to engage children in the later principle. The racial bias chart that was shown in a different post appears to be an attempt to include some social science into the math curriculum which relates to the former principle I noted.
There was much more nuance in the discussion between my spouse and friends but I start to glaze over when they talk about education so this was my basic take away.
Back in the day, in K-6 we all had a grade in conduct. This more or less precluded any chance at “straight As” for yours truly.
Conduct was basically an evaluation of how you interacted with teachers and other students as well as how well you followed the rules. It did not matter whether the setting was math class, art, or the playground. Is that still a thing anywhere?