Black 12 year old public school kids in San Francisco aren't given the opportunity to learn Algebra...

But Black 12 year old public school kids in Nigeria not only get to learn Algebra, but also how to do binary arithmetic. 🤷🏿‍♂️

Here's a full lesson of how Nigeria introduces algebra to 12 year olds:

https://youtu.be/qHfRxaTtoSE

Here's how Nigeria introduces a 12 year old to Binary, Octal, and Hexadecimal:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XTkqbQXw1rM

And you'll notice that both lessons are taught by Black men teachers.

Black 12 year old kids in San Francisco *have* Chromebooks.

But Black 12 year old kids in Nigeria learn the prerequisites to *write the code* for Chromebooks.

Later, if/when Nigerian kids outperform Black US kids in math, we will blame the Black US kids, or their parents, or "wokeness," or "no dads in the household," or "they just don't value education" or "they lack immigrant work ethics," etc.

Our ability to victim blame Black kids in the US for poor academic performance knows no bounds.

People ask me why my volunteer work is so centered on the US, and not on Nigeria. This is the mandatory Math curriculum for Nigerian 7th graders (age 12):

https://classhall.com/lesson/mathematics-scheme-of-work-for-jss1-first-term/

The path to tech is already shorter from Lagos, than from Larkin street.🤷🏿‍♂️

And the part that we don't talk about: consider two lower income Asian families in SF. One is 4th generation Chinese. The other is 1st generation Vietnamese. Both families believe:
* Black lives matter
* Schools shouldn't be named after slave owners
* Alt-Right wants to stop immigration and their rhetoric drives Asian hate
* Affirmative Action is good and necessary
* Legacy admission isn't good
♥️👍🏿

But the families have to vote and choose between 2 school boards:
1) No algebra?!
2) Alt-Right!

This creates a scenario where it is very easy for bad actors on the far-right to drive an educational wedge between two communities that generally support each other. 69% of Asian voters support affirmative action. 75% of Asians support Black Lives Matter.
♥️👍🏿

But it's tough for an Asian parent to hear that if they vote for this board, the Algebra education in their kid's school will suddenly become significantly worse than in China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria.

A woman in a position of power, that in my opinion, doesn't listen enough to Black parents or Black educators, and is not in the Black community, has strong opinions, and influence over how curriculum decisions in California get made.

When a Black educator correctly points out that no Black people were involved in this very lucrative but terrible decision supposedly to help Black people, he was threatened with police action.🤡

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Stanford-professor-Karen-speaks-out-17064784.php

There is nothing "woke" about her actions.

@mekkaokereke I was so disappointed when I read about the police comment. I encountered Boaler as an undergrad studying math and genuinely think a lot of her ideas are good. Personal conduct tho 😬

Funny enough (and to the original topic), I looked through the recommendations at the end of one of her books and it includes a lot of suggested materials for teaching algebra to elementary/middle schoolers.

@benjacobsen

1) I am very good at math

2) I am very good at math education

3) I am qualified to make curriculum changes designed to address a systemic racism problem in the US.

1, 2, and 3, are very different things.

A white professor in Palo Alto that thinks it's OK to threaten a Black professor in the East Bay with the cops over this, may not be able to do 3). That person probably can't reduce a problem caused by systemic racism, because they can't see that they are a part of that racism