From the surreal files of the Left’s alternate universe — in this case the deep (hole) thinkers at the Oregon Department of Education — comes a “Black History Month” recommendation for “Math Equity” to promote “ethnomathematics” in order to “dismantle racism in mathematics instruction.” (This is NOT parody…)

From their “friends at the Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction,” the ODE recommends this “teacher instruction” in order that they “learn key tools for engagement, develop strategies to improve equitable outcomes for Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, and join communities of practice.” Apparently, math teachers need to “examine their actions, beliefs, and values around teaching mathematics.”

The instruction provides this summary: “The framework for deconstructing racism in mathematics offers essential characteristics of antiracist math educators and critical approaches to dismantling white supremacy in math classrooms by visibilizing (sic) the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture … with respect to math.”

Apparently, math teachers have been putting too much “emphasis … on learning math in the ‘real world,’ as if our classrooms are not a part of the real world,” which “reinforces notions of either/or thinking because math is only seen as useful when it is in a particular context.” That, in turn, “can result in using mathematics to uphold capitalist and imperialist ways of being and understandings of the world.”

Thus, educators must “challenge the ways that math is used to hold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.”

They conclude, “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so. Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.” Who knew?

Currently, Oregon’s schools rank 40th in the nation and seem to be on the way to 50th.