mekka okereke :verified:
San Francisco's decision to delay Algebra for all students until the 9th grade in the name of "equity," is a really bad one. Black parents didn't ask for this, and this strategy won't achieve the equity that they're looking for.
Hard to accept: A lot of "anti-woke" people believe that being woke is all just a lot of bad decisions like this. This belief is due to framing by the far-right: any bad policy is "woke." I help them understand that Black families don't want this and didn't ask for it.
Paul Cantrell
@mekkaokereke It’s a metaphor for how the country treats all kinds of free public services, isn’t it? “Well if Black people can get it too, then it has to suck for everyone!”
Paul Cantrell
@mekkaokereke (The solution to the algebra question, of course, is to rework the educational system to allow more individual variation, so that every student can learn at the time and the speed that works best for them. But that would involve benefitting Black people instead of punishing them, so…)
Michael Love
@mekkaokereke Reminds me of one of my all time favorite Terry Pratchett quotes:
'Algebra?' said Madam Frout… 'But that's far too difficult for seven-year-olds!'
'Yes, but I didn't tell them that and so far they haven't found out,' said Susan.
mekka okereke :verified:
Black 12 year old public school kids in San Francisco aren't given the opportunity to learn Algebra...
But Black 12 year old public school kids in Nigeria not only get to learn Algebra, but also how to do binary arithmetic. 🤷🏿♂️
Here's a full lesson of how Nigeria introduces algebra to 12 year olds:
Here's how Nigeria introduces a 12 year old to Binary, Octal, and Hexadecimal:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XTkqbQXw1rM
And you'll notice that both lessons are taught by Black men teachers.
mekka okereke :verified:
Black 12 year old kids in San Francisco *have* Chromebooks.
But Black 12 year old kids in Nigeria learn the prerequisites to *write the code* for Chromebooks.
Later, if/when Nigerian kids outperform Black US kids in math, we will blame the Black US kids, or their parents, or "wokeness," or "no dads in the household," or "they just don't value education" or "they lack immigrant work ethics," etc.
Our ability to victim blame Black kids in the US for poor academic performance knows no bounds.
mekka okereke :verified:
People ask me why my volunteer work is so centered on the US, and not on Nigeria. This is the mandatory Math curriculum for Nigerian 7th graders (age 12):
https://classhall.com/lesson/mathematics-scheme-of-work-for-jss1-first-term/
The path to tech is already shorter from Lagos, than from Larkin street.🤷🏿♂️
mekka okereke :verified:
And the part that we don't talk about: consider two lower income Asian families in SF. One is 4th generation Chinese. The other is 1st generation Vietnamese. Both families believe:
* Black lives matter
* Schools shouldn't be named after slave owners
* Alt-Right wants to stop immigration and their rhetoric drives Asian hate
* Affirmative Action is good and necessary
* Legacy admission isn't good
♥️👍🏿
But the families have to vote and choose between 2 school boards:
1) No algebra?!
2) Alt-Right!
mekka okereke :verified:
This creates a scenario where it is very easy for bad actors on the far-right to drive an educational wedge between two communities that generally support each other. 69% of Asian voters support affirmative action. 75% of Asians support Black Lives Matter.
♥️👍🏿
But it's tough for an Asian parent to hear that if they vote for this board, the Algebra education in their kid's school will suddenly become significantly worse than in China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria.
mekka okereke :verified:
A woman in a position of power, that in my opinion, doesn't listen enough to Black parents or Black educators, and is not in the Black community, has strong opinions, and influence over how curriculum decisions in California get made.
When a Black educator correctly points out that no Black people were involved in this very lucrative but terrible decision supposedly to help Black people, he was threatened with police action.🤡
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Stanford-professor-Karen-speaks-out-17064784.php
There is nothing "woke" about her actions.
Christine Dantz
@mekkaokereke That's a terrible decision. My son started it in elementary school and he still had trouble in High school. If he didn't have several years of it, he wouldn't have made it through high school level.
Sofia ☭🇧🇷☭
@mekkaokereke @longobord there's also a big difference between telling an elementary-school kid that they're generically "gifted" and telling a middle-school kid that they're ready for more advanced study in a specific subject. I'd argue for getting rid of the "gifted" label and broader programs, but the point should be to show the kids that everyone is talented in some areas and struggles in others.
Coach Leftist Diesel
@sofiav @mekkaokereke @longobord
Heck yeah. I would have benefited from a program to teach "gifted" kids how to gracefully work hard at something instead of falling easily into it.
mekka okereke :verified:
The "there's inequity in *advanced* classes" argument does have merit.
Black kids are often misidentified as "not gifted" and white kids are often misidentified as "gifted." And then gifted kids get better resources, more attention, better classes, smaller class sizes, that makes the gifted label a self fulfilling prophecy.
The solve for that may not be "No gifted programs for anyone!" It may again be "Reduce the racism."
Similar arguments are for sexism / non neurotypicals.
Christie Dudley
@mekkaokereke I don't understand what part of "lets get rid of advanced programs because not all students are advanced and there is inequity in that advancement.
If they had special school, maybe after school or in the summer specifically for students in key areas to GET advanced they might just have a little better luck. Algebra is a good start. They might even throw some study skills in there since it is shown that those skills are the biggest problem for kids from disadvantaged homes.
Kelli Murbach
@mekkaokereke @longobord ooh, as a girl with an engineering degree the "not good at math" thing annoys me. Not that it was ever said to me, but that it was way more of an acceptable thing to say than "I'm not good at English" irrespective of gender.
It's as if not being good at something is a pass for not trying to figure out how to make it work for you.
As someone who focused on how to make math work for me (not how math worked) it seems like a lot of people missed out on that lesson.
mekka okereke :verified:
On gender and tracking:
A not-rich little white 1st grade girl that has undiagnosed bad eyesight, is more likely than a rich white boy, to be mislabelled as "not good at math" and put on the slower education track.
She finally gets her diagnosis and her glasses in the 5th grade, but by then it's too late. She fights to make up ground to get into her dream college, then says things like, "I majored in Chemistry at Cornell, which was hard because I have never been good at math!" 😢
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