Radicalizing mathematics

Those who worship at the altar of Political Correctness and believe American public schools are doing just a dandy job of educating youth might want to consider the following: China graduated almost 200,000 engineers, 44 percent of the undergraduate degrees, in 1999, according to the National Science Foundation, and has plans to eventually graduate a million engineers each year.

In contrast, U.S. engineering schools churned out just 73,000 engineers in 2004, according to Ronald Barr, Past President of the American Society for Engineering Education, totaling less than 5 percent of all bachelor's degrees awarded. "Our graduate schools are filled with foreign nationals who last year earned 58 percent of the engineering Ph.D.s awarded in the United States. This country relies heavily on these grads to fill our technological needs, but more and more U.S.-trained engineers are returning home after graduation," Barr wrote back in 2005.

Barr makes the case that students must excel at math and science to succeed in the engineering field. So you would think there would be a renewed focus on that third R - Rithmetic. But in some New York City schools, math class has become a vehicle for leftist teachers to indoctrinate students to socialism. If the kids learn a little math along the way, it's likely an accident.

Click on www.radicalmath.org and be amazed. Right away you'll notice the organization's mission: "RadicalMath is a resource for educators interested in integrating issues of social and economic justice into math curriculum and classes."

These folks recently held a conference attracting 400 math teachers and education professors entitled "Creating Balance in an Unjust World: Math Education and Social Justice." The official program's first page started with a passage from Paulo Freire, the Brazilian Marxist educator and icon of the teaching-for-social-justice movement: "There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to [. . .] bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of our world."

Ellen Davidson from Simmons College led the first session of the conference entitled: "How Unfair Is It? Analyzing World Resource Distribution in Mathematically Rigorous Ways." The workshop promised to design lessons to "help children build stronger conceptual mathematics skills while simultaneously helping them understand social injustice."

Sarah Ludwig led a workshop on Teaching Mathematics Through an Economics Justice Lens and a group of Chicago public high school students took attendees through a social justice mathematics project involving racial profiling. But I really wish I could have been there for: "Beyond Barbie: Moving from Scale to Social Justice," facilitated by Portland State's Swapna Mukhopadhyay. The workshop description reads: "In this hands-on session" - whatever that means - "we will focus on how mathematizing Barbie doll in terms of proportional reasoning opens up to a deep interrogation of some vexing social and cultural issues of our global world. Besides unpacking the relationship between self image, self worth and body image that result in eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, we will also look at the labor issues - particularly in terms sweatshops conditions - in toy manufacturing." Got that? And you thought calculus was hard.

It turns out that RadicalMath got its start with a grant from the New York City Department of Education. The conference's principal organizer, Jonathan Osler, is a math teacher at El Puente Academy, a small "social-justice" high school in Brooklyn. Back in 2005, he and two math teachers from other schools applied for the DOE's Zone Teacher Inquiry Grants Program. According to City Journal's Sol Stern, some of the social-justice issues that math classes explore are: check-cashing locations ripping off poor people, H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt ripping off poor people, and foreclosure agencies ripping off poor people.

When informed about the "Creating Balance" conference, the school's chancellor Joel Klein told Stern, "This is a private conference, at which a range of views will be expressed. It seems that many of these views are hardly `radical.'"

Hardly radical? It used to be that kids would actually learn some math in high school before going off to college to be turned into Commies. It probably doesn't matter whether these kids can add, subtract and multiply. After all, social justice demands that society provide for them from cradle to grave. But, has anyone warned the Chinese?

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No provision for a genuinely gifted child

The parents of a seven-year-old science prodigy have begun a world-wide search for a university place for their child, with the warning that "a great mind could be lost" if he is not offered the chance to pursue his studies at degree level. Ainan Celeste Cawley, the son of a British father and a Singaporean mother, passed his O-level chemistry in Singapore at the age of 6 and is studying for an A level in the same subject.

The case of the child genius, whose parents claim that he could walk at six months and construct complex sentences by his first birthday, has provoked both curiosity and concern. Experts believe [with no evidence] that the lack of a normal childhood can do irreparable long-term psychological damage.

Yesterday Ainan's father, Valentine, said that it had been apparent from birth that his son, who likes drawing and watching Mr Bean videos when not studying, was very unusual. "As a toddler, he would seek out science books in the library, showing a preference for dense texts with complicated illustrations of scientific matters. These he would absorb quietly and comment on later. "By the time he was 3 or 4, he was interested in hyper-dimensional shapes and would draw their shadows in two dimensions as a form of intellectual play," he said.

Mr Cawley, a writer, said that his son showed an interest in chemistry when he was 6 and picked up a chemistry O-level paper at his aunt's house. "He was 6® and he got all the questions right. It turned out that he had taught himself chemistry on the internet," he said.

He denied that child prodigies were doomed to failure at university and said that it would be unfair to allow his son's mind to "stagnate". "Imagine you are the strongest man in the world and someone says to you, try lifting something small like a banana. It's like asking him to deny his true nature. Well, it's the same with a child prodigy," he said.

The parents are looking for a sponsor for their child's university education and say that one of them would accompany him during his studies. Syahadah Cawley, his mother, who is an artist, denied that they had put any pressure on him. "He is home-tutored most of the time, but he goes to school for PC classes and Malay lessons and has friends there," she said.

Mr Cawley added: "He is a very cool dude. You have never seen anyone more relaxed and laidback in your life." The couple said that it was too early to tell if their other sons, Fintan, 4, and Tiarnan, 1, were equally gifted.

Professor Tim White, of the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, said he had no doubt that the child was a chemistry prodigy. "He has an excellent grasp of the subject - he is well able to write and balance equations, draw molecular formulas, understands the chemical properties, knows about radioactivity and so on. Clearly, a normal school would be incredibly frustrating for Ainan," he said. He added that his own university had decided not to offer a place to Ainan because the laboratory benches were too high, with shelves out of reach and chemical dispensers too big for the child to hold.

"There were considerable logistical barriers - chemistry is an experimental science, and unlike gifted child musicians and mathematicians, quite special requirements would be needed," he said. Professor White had mixed feelings about sending a seven-year-old to university. "He is a boy, but it would certainly be a great shame if he become frustrated and lost his enthusiasm for science by being constrained in an environment that did not stretch his abilities and imagination," he said.

Priya Naidu, a lecturer at the School of Chemical and Life Sciences at the Singapore Polytechnic, said that the child was a "cute little boy with the attention span of a seven-year-old", but the academic ability of a 17 to 18-year-old chemistry student. "He has the capability to learn very quickly and is reading up on university texts and scientific journals." But Joan Freeman, Visiting Professor in the Psychology of Education at Middlesex University, said that she thought Ainan's parents were making a terrible mistake. "To send a child to university at 7 is like you are not regarding him as a human being, but as a performing monkey," she said.

Ainan himself was not available for interview. His mother said: "He is rather shy with new people. Most of the truly gifted are introverts - studies show this."

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British A-level successor derided as second-rate

Diplomas are the poor relation of A levels and will not transform the school system, education experts will say in a report today that will be seen as a devastating attack on one of the Government’s pet projects. The 14-19 diplomas, which will be introduced next year, are designed to end the divide between practical and academic learning.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, hopes that they will become the “jewel in the crown” of the education system, making the A level redundant. But according to a report by education experts, the diplomas are “the latest in a long line of broad vocational qualifications occupying the ground between academic qualifications and apprenticeship” and would “suffer in the shadow of A levels”.

The Nuffield Review, led by Professor Richard Pring, from the University of Oxford department of education, said that the introduction of the diplomas had been rushed.

When the Government released details of the new diplomas last month there were three academic subjects (science, humanities and languages) but the original 14 were more vocational, raising questions about whether they could compete with A levels. The subjects included hair and beauty, travel and tourism and society, health and development.

Of the first diplomas, the report said: “Such middle-track qualifications have in the past been regarded as an alternative for the less academically able and the review predicts that teachers will view diplomas in the same way — with A levels and GCSEs remaining the more prestigious qualifications. “It is unfortunate that the three new diploma lines will be developed later than their vocational counterparts, as this means the diploma brand will have to forge its identity as a broad vocational qualification.” The Government had to decide now, the report said, whether GCSEs and A levels would run alongside diplomas or be included in their framework.

Ministers scrapped next year’s scheduled review of A levels, announcing instead that all qualifications for 14 to 19-year-olds would be reviewed in 2013. But the report’s authors said that the reform of A levels could not wait until then. Dr Ken Spours, from the University of London’s Institute of Education, said: “The diplomas will not transform the 14-19 system. As long as A levels remain unreformed, diplomas will end up being regarded as a poor relation.”

Diplomas are designed to appeal to employers by giving pupils a grounding in core subjects and practical skills. Several universities said that they would accept the engineering diploma as entry to their degree courses.

The report’s authors, who have been evaluating high school education since 2003, questioned the purpose and role of the diplomas. They also criticised the “lack of genuine involvement of qualifications experts, practitioners and awarding bodies” in the diploma’s development. But Professor Pring said that they did offer some benefits. “There is, no doubt, enthusiasm from many schools and colleges for the opportunity that diplomas may provide for a more flexible approach to the curriculum.”

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