E04: Opportunities of Civic Engagement in Math Classroom (USA)

The speaker reflects on the importance of math education in fostering civic awareness and imagination. They discuss how math allows for conceptual thinking and the exploration of different perspectives. Math can help students envision multiple possibilities for the future and challenge rigid beliefs. The speaker suggests that math should promote critical thinking and self-awareness, rather than just following procedures. They question the societal perception of math as a tool for oppression and highlight the need for a deeper understanding of its purpose. Ultimately, the speaker believes that math education should encourage students to imagine and create alternative realities, fostering empathy and creativity. Math, me growing up, I think I haven't thought about math relating much with the real world. But do you discuss about real world issues, or if this helps with the civic awareness, if the math education has the potential to help students with the civic awareness or not? So I think math, the reason I gravitate towards math is because it's conceptual, because it's like the one place where you really can live in the simple world. Like, you know, like one half doesn't exist in the real world. You can't get perfectly halfway from one place to another. But that's a concept in math that means exactly one specific location. And so there's something about being able to imagine, like being able to be in an imaginary space, that I think is actually really important for civic education. Because if you're asking people to imagine their future, if they believe they only have one option, this is how it's going to be, because that's how it was for my dad. And my dad said to do that. You know, maybe they have one view. And if they go to a place where they can argue something really, really simple in a conceptual space that somebody else thinks the answer is different, and they're both right. And we have these, like, I don't know, simplified versions of – I don't know if simplified is the right word, but it's kind of like how I said in the beginning that, like, equality is this math idea, which is true in math and not true in reality. That being able to say, like, oh, we can represent a value in, like, all these different ways, like, maybe that can carry over to my future, doesn't have to be as rigid as I thought it was. I don't know. I don't know if that is a leap, but sometimes I think that, like, real-world applications not actually – not the only way to, like, impact real-world issues. Yeah. Yeah, so much about, like, regulating yourself is imagining what's going to happen and, like, how things are going to work out. If you're somebody who has the ability to, like, think pretty critically or strategically or, I don't know, like, has the ability to slow things down and do things step-by-step, I think hopefully you could be truer to your own self and what your needs are and not vote against your needs or whatever. Most people will just be like, I don't know. I think I'll use it. Like, I don't know. Someone told me it was helpful, right? Like, there's not really an understanding of how it relates to students where they are right now, not, like, who they're going to – I don't know what profession they'll have. But that's all very by design because math class is where you learn how capital works and that fractions are parts of a whole. They're not relations between numbers. They're parts. Things get taken away, right? So fractions are not about balancing. It's about taking away from you. Like, the ways we talk about math is the language of inequality, of oppression. Like, maybe that's a little bit. Yeah. Like, when you do, like, fractions and stuff, we're just, like, solving the textbook problem. Like, in mathematics, it just seems like you're just doing things in depth. And there's a certain, like, comfort for some students to that, right? Because you're like, I know how to do this process, and it's going to work the same way every time, and that's very comforting. And I'm aware of that. But there is also the other piece of it, which is, like, well, why else? Why else do this? Because it feels comfortable. Yeah. And I don't think many curriculum designers could answer that question because I think we're all confused as just a culture about what numbers are supposed to be for. Because they are for hurting people. Like, that is what we use them for in our culture. Yeah. So it's, yeah. The wrap-up question would be, like, in your opinion. Actually, there are two questions. So in your opinion, what role should math education play in promoting fairness and civic responsibility among students? It could be, like, just, like, letting them know you don't have to be stressed about things. Yeah. I think it goes back to what I was saying earlier about I think if, you know, you take English class and maybe the goal of English class is at the very root of it, not that everything is gold, but, like, it's, like, empathy, right? You're trying to understand other people's stories. The goal of math is imagination. What is possible? Even if it's not possible, what can my mind do, right? Like, what can I imagine? What can I create? And I think that's what I would hope people would get from it. It's a permission to be who you're not. It's a permission to say, like, I can imagine a world where things are different. And I can imagine multiple worlds where things are different. And so, yeah, I guess it's permission to be anything but yourself. But it's not theater, right? It's like you're still in your own world. I don't know, though. I don't know if most people get to that place in math or if they're just filling out the fraction sheet or whatever.