Main Equity Page

Equity: Noticings and Wonders

I am beginning to understand the role I play in upholding racist structures in mathematics education. In order to take action with like-minded educators I will document some noticings/wonders on this page (which I will continue to update). Most of these ideas are not my own and I will give specific credit where possible in brackets.

Issues with Math Conferences

  • How well do the following reflect the diversity of our students? Listed from most powerful to least powerful:
    • Organization leadership at the national, state, and local level [Marian Dingle]
    • Conference committee/organizers 
    • Featured speakers (and/or paid speakers)
    • Speakers (and/or unpaid speakers)
    • Teachers 
  • Some conference organizers have trouble assembling diverse speaker lineups for reasons including:
    • White people are over-represented in education [data here] and the people in powerful positions in math education are predominantly white
    • White speakers not doing enough to advocate for diversity (related: Robert Kaplinsky’s post about inclusion riders)
    • Tokenization – are educators being chosen for the appearance of diversity rather than their work?
    • Conferences are not safe spaces of belonging for marginalized groups (for example, Dr. Brandie Waid’s post on NCTM 22)
    • Unpaid speaking slots attract people with something to sell or a brand to promote. White privilege allows white people to choose not to engage in equity work, and makes them more likely to have “extra time” to present for free (related: Dr. Theodore Chao’s tweet)
  • Many sessions are content focused and rarely go deeper than surface-level equity work (“everyone can benefit from this teaching strategy!”)
  • Sessions that do push us past our comfort zone (the place where learning happens – right?) on equity are often poorly attended compared to content-focused, equity-light sessions
  • Note: If you are a conference organizer interested in this work, I have assembled a list of questions you can use to help you reflect and plan. Please reach out to me to request this document.

Issues with Me

  • My white privilege comes from the fact that I get to choose to do this work 
  • I haven’t proactively advocated for diverse speaker line-ups with the conferences I’ve been invited to, but will going forward (related: Robert Kaplinsky’s post about inclusion riders)
  • Am I spending time pointing fingers when I could be doing the work with myself, my family, and my colleagues? [Marian Dingle]
  • Whose problem is white-supremacy to fix? Shouldn’t white people be doing the most to upend the damage that white-supremacy is doing?
  • I keep realizing that I’m not actually doing the work. Quick recap:
    • (First) I gave content-focused sessions with teaching strategies that help “all kids learn math!” Equity is not mentioned, but in my mind it is implied and I believed everyone was on the same page. No one complained.
    • (Then) I gave content-focused sessions but briefly mentioned that I denounce white-supremacy and believe that math class should be a place of belonging, critical thinking, diversity of thought, etc. This made some people uncomfortable – it felt like a detour and disconnected from the rest of my session. 
    • (Now) I’m trying to figure out how to more deeply integrate equity and content, since I believe that separating them upholds the status quo. Currently, I have a chunk at the end of my presentations asking people to reflect on a few of the characteristics of white-supremacy (sense of urgency, perfectionism, only one right way, either/or thinking, individualism, objectivity, from this website). How do the ideas we discussed (content/pedagogy) push back on these parts of white-supremacy culture? Please reach out to me if you have further suggestions/ideas for me. 

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