Good teaching is anti-racist teaching. Of course what counts as good teaching is subjective and what many math educators consider good has roots in whiteness. Color-blind math instruction ignores, but doesn’t eliminate, negative stereotypes that marginalized students face every day and results in deficit mindsets that place blame of failure on students, their families, and the community. Anti-racist math pedagogy asks teachers to turn inward and examine the structures of the math classroom that sustain racial inequalities and limit student success, such as a unilateral focus on speed and accuracy based on rote memorization. This is not to suggest that speed and accuracy are not important, but rather that its sole prioritization is insufficient in anti-racist curricula. Therefore this section will highlight strategies that attend to the critical axis of equity; that is, identity and power.
Pamela Seda and Kyndall Brown, the authors of Choosing to See: A Framework for Equity in the Math Classroom, use the ICUCARE (“I-see-you-care”) strategy checklist to suggest seven anti-racist instructional strategies that attend to the critical axis of equity.46
- Include others as experts
- be Critically conscious
- Understand your students
- use Culturally relevant curricula
- Assess, activate, and build on prior knowledge
- Release control
- Expect more
These seven strategies provide a starting place for teachers to address both the identity and power dimensions on the critical axis of equity. Rubel asserts that “instructional practices that encourage opportunities for equitable participation can themselves be an avenue toward social justice, and therefore, a way to teach for social justice.”47 When teachers prioritize conceptual understanding and create space for all students to actively and meaningfully engage in lessons, students develop a stronger mathematical identity as doers of mathematics. Further, examining mathematics concepts through the lens of social justice empowers students to examine and critique injustice in their own worlds. It provides an answer to the dreaded “When will I ever use this?” question. The goal is not to overshadow the standards, but to provide context for the standards, thereby striking balance between the dominant and critical axes of equity. Consider the culturally relevant math activities described below.