Mathematics and P.S. 171

Aided by a slavish adherence to constructivist ideology, Puerto Rico continues to retain its position of last among all States in the Mathematics section of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test. Indeed, there are currently no competitors for this position. Despite receiving a negative boost from the mathematically deranged Obamacore, even DC remains one standard deviation ahead of Puerto Rico.

One contributing factor to this educational disaster is the indescribably awful quality and low level of Mathematical activities provided to teachers by the Puerto Rico Department of Education. Clearly, these activities are written, not by mathematicians, but by ideologues with very little mathematical culture and training.

The controversial Senate Project P.S. 171, now under consideration, aims to insert additional notions of gender ideology into the curriculum, starting with a pilot study involving elementary schools. In the same way that the Saudi religious authorities attempted to remove the letter x on the ground that it resembled the Christian cross, gender activists apparently wish to replace o by x.

This and succeeding posts will examine some recent examples of mathematical talibanism in the document: Programa de Matemáticas Manual de Equidad de Género, Puerto Rico Department of Education, 2015. On the cover of this document is seen —perhaps as a warning of the content—, the mathematically dubious equation ♂ = ♀ or in biological terms XY =XX. Inside, he who seeks will find:

Activity for Grade 10 — Right Triangles

which begins by explaining why the Pythagorean theorem is useful in our daily lives for knowing the height of buildings and building ladders to pick fruit.

Students are then divided into groups and each asked to imagine that his team is tasked by a publisher to produce a verbal exercise concerning gender equity and including as part of its solution an application of the Pythagorean theorem.

Instructions include:

1. Solve the exercise in the exercise book.
2. Present the problem including a diagram on a large poster.
3. Paste a copy of your solution at the back of the board.
4. Present the exercise to the class so that all can solve it.
5. Evaluate the exercise and the subgroup presentations.

This exercise is ideological in nature, evaluation being based on non-mathematical categories such as: “real world, solution, poster, presentation, teamwork, evaluation of teams”. The opportunity cost involved in all this “busy work” is enormous. Valuable time is being taken from the teaching of Mathematics.

The reasons provided for studying the Pythagorean theorem are unconvincing. No one constructs ladders to pick fruit. We buy ladders at the local hardware shop. We study mathematics to train the brain –NOT because it is useful in the supermarket or picking fruit.

“The essential and characterizing properties of mathematics, which enable it when properly taught, to make unique and indispensable contributions to the education of all youth, are that it is exact, abstract and logically structured” –Frank Allen

The level of this activity is also of serious concern. While Puerto Rican students in GRADE 10 are constructing posters relating the Pythagorean theorem to gender equity, the 1997 Calfornia Content Standards require that at GRADE 7 students know the Pythagorean theorem and deepen their understanding of plane and solid geometric shapes by constructing figures that meet given conditions and by identifying attributes of figures. Specifically, students must:

1. Know and understand the Pythagorean theorem and its converse and use it to find the length of the missing side of a right triangle and the lengths of other line segments and, in some situations, empirically verify the Pythagorean theorem by direct measurement.
2. Identify elements of three-dimensional geometric objects (e.g., diagonals of rectangular solids) and describe how two or more objects are related in space (e.g., skew lines, the possible ways three planes might intersect).

Comparison with the Russian fourth grade curriculum [1] is also revealing.

A purported aim of the PR curriculum is to increase the participation of women in areas of science, engineering and technical careers. Exercises which artificially mix mathematics and gender will have precisely the reverse efect. An essential requirement to enter a STEM field is a solid training in Mathematics.

Senate bill P.S. 171, if implemented, will likely lead to the insertion of more such ideological exercises into the curriculum and further increase the damage to Mathematics and Science education in Puerto Rico to the detriment of all students.

[1] Downloaded from ftp://math.stanford.edu/pub/papers/milgram/russian-grade-4-problems.pdf