> What accounts for the differences in rates by race?
Yes let’s ask questions too spicy for Hacker News in public school math class.
Not necessarily. Families that rely on food stamps to survive could be considered to have poor food security. How exactly is that propaganda?
And for it to carry a controversial social message will cause friction in an institution that includes all political tribes, which detracts from the non-ideological education mission.
I don't think this word problem carries a social message, it just puts data in front of students and asks them to compare different categories. There would be a social message if the problem was normative, like "because these differences exist, ___ is the answer". But that kind of thinking isn't really math, it would be better suited to something like social studies or language arts
Figuring out "how many people from each racial group are likely experiencing food insecurity across the U.S." is an everyday problem?
>I don't think this word problem carries a social message, it just puts data in front of students and asks them to compare different categories.
The message is not in the question itself or in the data, but in the fact that this particular question was chosen in favor of any other. Would you think I don't have any ulterior motive if I asked "these are the arrest statistics across the US, tabulated by race. What conclusions can be drawn from this?"?
It's more of an everyday problem than just giving students unlabeled categories.
> Would you think I don't have any ulterior motive if I asked "these are the arrest statistics across the US, tabulated by race. What conclusions can be drawn from this?"?
If by "ulterior motive" you mean raising awareness about different socioeconomic cohorts in American society, I have no issue with those kinds of motives.
If the stance was more aggressive e.g. "you need to draw these conclusions from these numbers and support this kind of policy", that's essentially indoctrination and we can both agree that it's out of place in any genuine education.
But just raising awareness about different demographics and socioeconomic groups and encouraging discussion (in a way that's open, socratic, with minimal teacher intervention): this I have no issue with.
Covering up problems by referring to state-level statistics instead of looking at demographics is racist propaganda. Race is indeed a political tool, as are efforts to ignore it.
Real mathematicians respect math
This need to ground the instruction in practical examples applies especially to statistics in schools where the most relatable population for discussing populations is the human population.
The history of erasing inconvenient populations by various deliberate or accidental means such as focussing on outcomes rather than causes is something that absolutely does need to be taught as part of a statistics course. When studying the physical properties of gasses we don’t ignore the spurious peaks in excitation data, we look for explanations as to why those two peaks in the hydrogen excitation experiment occurred. Binning by wider excitation ranges would have helped erase those anomalies, but the scientists chose to ask the question rather than hide the uncomfortable facts (“eliminate the outliers”).
We necessarily should be asking political questions in statistics because most statistics are innately tied to human behaviour, not pure mathematics or science. Are there more people working in maths and physics or law enforcement and legislation?
The best way to educate future statisticians about invisible populations is to teach them about the mistakes of the past. These mistakes include for example focussing on which current populations commit the most violent domestic crimes per capita without thinking to ask why people commit crime, and then comparing per capita crime rates to the various causative factors of crime (which might be for example wealth, access to employment, police hours per capita).
Everything is politics, any time there are one or more people involved. There is no escaping this even in mathematics. To pretend otherwise is to reinforce the erasure of oppressed populations such as women and non-majority races/cultures (and note that using the word “cultures” instead of “races” doesn’t stop you being racist).
Essay topic for today: is there race or gender discrimination in physics and maths employment in the USA? Why are there so few women in STEM and where do populations start to become more distinct? Is the bimodal distribution of various characteristics by sex sufficient to explain the male dominance of mathematics and physics and the rapid decline of female populations from high school through to the end of a bachelors degree? Are there factors apart from IQ that can explain the lack of women in STEM?
These examples aren't inflammatory unless you're in denial
Generally, most framing in the western world is self serving to a particular group of people, so these kinds of facts don't go over so well.
Maybe check the statistics on that one.
If anything, what you are saying is racist and discounts ever person in the government and military that is not 'white' , a bizarre category of not actually being a race that is invented for arguments like your own
How many of the commanders in chief were non-white?
I rest my case.
You can't ask a politically-charged question in a class that has nothing to do with politics and then act surprised when people accuse you of injecting politics where it doesn't belong.
The difference is the example question isn't political, it merely puts a data set in front of students and has them analyze it.
> You can't ask a politically-charged question in a class that has nothing to do with politics
The question has nothing to do with politics. It would be political if the teacher said: "now draw these conclusions, vote for these people". I know the link I provided had questions that were more in line with this, but the specific example I gave isn't asking for any conclusions, only observations
The subject is MATH. The learning should be MATH. Other learning can happen where those types of critical thinking skills are taught.
That is not the purpose of a MATH class.
What about this hypothetical data set makes you so uncomfortable?
This isn't about me. It's about whether children should be expected to deal with irrelevant topics in class. There are an infinite number of ways to ask the same mathematical problem that don't involve political issues. But you insist that it must be so, then deny that it is so. And to cap it off, you call anyone that disagrees a racist... not flat out, through insinuation.
Bad faith argument.
>the specific example I gave isn't asking for any conclusions, only observations
Well, here's an observation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#/medi...
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Setting the joke aside, is there really that much difference between giving you that (perfectly true) statistic and just telling you "pirates prevent global warming"?
Some facts can be both true and inflammatory. Complex and nuanced topics should be approached with respect, as it is very easy to mislead or confuse, especially children.
Imagine using homicide offense rate by race to teach fractions for an example how someone could draw wild conclusions from accurate facts. If a teacher used the example black men are 7 times more likely than white men as a math example, it would be incredibly reckless.
Race is a very loaded topic. You could teach a college course on this fact and still start to scratch the surface.
Well yes and no. No American should experience food insecurity, but also some demographics experience more food insecurity than others.
For the record, if it was a question about hate crimes or serial killers I would also oppose it for the exact same reason
The problem with this isn't the facts being presented, but the fact that when these sort of facts are needlessly inserted into every possible area of a child's education that child will then have a fundamentally different outlook and racial division will only rise as these differences are expounded
It could. I don't disagree with this objection, but at the same time this argument isn't just confined to math but also other subjects. I think that trying to cover up current socioeconomic divisions is on par with covering up less tasteful parts of US history, both are whitewashing. The world isn't perfect, we shouldn't pretend that it is
> The problem with this isn't the facts being presented, but the fact that when these sort of facts are needlessly inserted into every possible area of a child's education that child will then have a fundamentally different outlook and racial division will only rise as these differences are expounded
I wouldn't describe acknowledging things that elicit discomfort as "needless insertions". Also they aren't inserted everywhere (as far as I know...)
I don't think acknowledging a situation will necessarily exacerbate it. I think the first step to moving beyond a situation is acknowledging it
Like when I took math in K-12 one thing I remember is they'd always try to be multicultural with the names in word problems and didn't just use generic white names like "John", "Adam", etc. If THIS is what they're referring to as CRT, then who cares?
They could do something more, like the problems listed here: https://www.radicalmath.org/post/addressing-systemic-racism-...
For example, something like this: "Given population estimates, how many people from each racial group are likely experiencing food insecurity across the U.S.? In your city/state?"
I don't think there's anything bad about this as long as the data is genuine. But I'd love to hear from someone of a different opinion