What’s behind the Florida book flap?

You know the adage about not tearing down a wall until after you know why it was built?

Hearing about the latest Florida law, this one “banning” some math books, has me wondering.

What could be in math books that would be objectionable?

At the same time, I remembered that some of the Woke Generation claim math, itself, is racist. (Along with grammar, objectivity, master bedrooms, etc.).

Here are a couple of examples of stories claiming that math is racist:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/08/racism-our-curriculums-isnt-limited-history-its-math-too/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-leftists-try-to-cancel-math-class-11621355858

You don’t have to agree with these ^^^ points of view. You just have to admit they exist. 

With the Florida school book issue, everyone was talking about the “banned” books, but no one had an example of the objectionable language — until now, even if the examples are few, from The New York Times. 

 Before we can tear down the metaphoric wall, we have to know what it is made of — brick, or stone, or wood, or plastic.

Florida made a mistake by not offering examples of the offensive material. This suggests it doesn’t have a strong case, because if it did — it would present it. And the books aren’t being “banned.” The objectionable ones simply won’t be bought by the state of Florida. Massachusetts can still buy them, if it wishes. 

The absence of solid examples from Florida opens the door to the Times doing its own case study. While I trust the reporters to be as fair as they are able, they are Times’ staffers and I know the Times staff to be overwhelmingly liberal. It linked to the four examples given by Florida. (The chart above is one.)

If you follow the Times link — and I hope you will — you will see the reporters present (at least) two points of view, and spell out what they found to be “objectionable” material in the books. 

But first — math is math. It is factual and predictable. 2+2=4 no matter your race, age, religion, gender, nationality or NFL team you root for.

The fundamentals don’t change. They are immutable.

In my memory, I was taught that if Farmer Gray has 10 chickens and they each lay one egg each day, that means in a week, the farmer has 70 eggs.

If one chicken dies, the next week he collects 63 eggs. 

I did not have to write a “math biography” — which I would have loved to do because I could write better than I could compute.

Today, kids may be asked to write a “math biography” so that teachers, the Times explains, can help identify kids who need help.

In my day, the teachers identified those kids by their inability to get 2+2=4 right. If they couldn’t do that, they needed help.

So simple. No psychology required. 

Back in my day, U.S. students pretty much led the world in math scores. Now we trail Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Latvia, Dubai, and Russia(!), among others.

I wonder if their schools are teaching SEL?

What’s that?

That is Social-Emotional Learning content, the Times explains, “a practice with roots in psychological research that tries to help students develop mind-sets that can support academic success.”

As meaningful as how many eggs Farmer Gray gets from his chickens, children should think about how the hens feel about having their eggs stolen.

That’s a joke — but maybe not that much of an exaggeration.

One book had a chart showing five core skills students should develop. Here they are:

What in the blue blazes does “self-awareness” and “relationship skills” have to do with 2+2=4?

I am not saying it has no place in schools. I am saying it can be taught in mental health, or in comportment (remember that?) or social science.

Here’s the problem: Since 2+2=4 never changes, the publishers have to find something new so that they can sell new math texts to school districts. Since the math doesn’t change, publishers change the narrative.

Some of it is OK. It was Farmer Gray when I was in school, representing an overwhelmingly white, patriarchal society.

So now it might be Farmer Grace, or Farmer Kahlil.

No problem.

But when one math book, as reported by the Times, provides mini bios of mathematicians, and not a single one is a white male, haven’t we overcorrected, just a bit?

No, that’s not white fragility, it’s simple reason. Many of us say we want an “America that looks like us.”

Doesn’t that include white kids?

“Some educators worried that the field of social-emotional learning celebrated behaviors associated with white, middle-class, culture, and paid too little attention to the kind of grit it takes to grow up in poverty,” the Times reported.

If that’s true, the solution is simple. Drop the social indoctrination and return to 2+2=4.