{"id":2223443,"date":"2024-04-17T16:20:03","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T20:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dumbing-down-education-in-the-name-of-decolonization\/"},"modified":"2024-04-17T16:29:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T20:29:17","slug":"dumbing-down-education-in-the-name-of-decolonization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dumbing-down-education-in-the-name-of-decolonization\/","title":{"rendered":"Simplifying Education in the Pursuit of Decolonization"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdumbing-down-education-in-the-name-of-decolonization%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2223443&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The text \u2062provides a critical perspective on the trend of &#8220;decolonizing&#8221; education, particularly in mathematics and science.\u200d It references\u200b the case of a collapsing footbridge \u200din the DRC\u200c to question the\u200b push for such initiatives, highlighting concerns about dumbing down academic disciplines. The piece critiques efforts to reshape math education and discusses the implications of this movement in \u2062various contexts, including in Pittsburgh and globally.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s not every day that a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gov-desantis-touts-fla-economic-boom-in-grand-opening-speech\/\" title=\"Gov. DeSantis touts Fla. Economic boom in grand opening speech\">ribbon-cutting ceremony<\/a> in the Democratic Republic of Congo attracts international media attention. Normally, Congo flies under the radar, even though it\u2019s actually one of the biggest countries in the world \u2014 it\u2019s bigger than Mexico, believe it or not. But a couple of years ago, this incredible footage from the capital of Congo was picked up by the Western media. It\u2019s from the grand opening of a footbridge that was apparently a big deal for the locals. Here\u2019s how it went:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s a little like the collapse of that bridge in Baltimore, except in this case, a barge didn\u2019t need to hit anything. All they had to do was cut the ribbon and stand on the bridge, and the whole thing came crashing down on them. Fortunately, no one was hurt in that incident. It got a few laughs on social media and everyone moved on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In retrospect, however, the collapse of that footbridge in Congo\u2019s capital was more than just a meme on the internet. It was a practical manifestation of something that Western academics now want to import into this country. There is a concerted effort underway in universities all over the world to \u201cdecolonize\u201d mathematics, engineering, and science in general. It\u2019s been generations since Congo was under Belgian rule, so presumably that footbridge is a great example of decolonized engineering. And now the West wants to emulate it.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/episode\/ep-1349-dumbing-down-education-in-the-name-of-decolonization\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I first noticed this trend when I came across a recent <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/science.anu.edu.au\/news-events\/news\/maths-has-no-borders-professor-rowena-ball-brings-indigenous-mathematics-anu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">article<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  from Australian National University, which according to Wikipedia, is supposedly an impressive institution. The gist is that a professor in Australia named Rowena Ball is trying to get the concept of \u201cIndigenous Mathematics\u201d off the ground because Aboriginal people struggle with European mathematics, otherwise known as real mathematics. The article includes this remarkable line:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Numbers and arithmetic and accounting often are of secondary importance in Indigenous mathematics.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That seems to make as much sense as saying that words are of secondary importance in linguistics. Or that maps or of secondary importance in the science of cartography. How can you have mathematics without numbers and arithmetic, exactly? Read on, and Professor Ball will tell you: <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mathematics is primarily the science of patterns \u2026 and recognising and classifying those patterns. \u2026 One interesting example that we are currently investigating is the use of chiral symmetry to engineer a long-distance smoke signalling technology in real time. If you light an incense stick you will see the twin counter-rotating vortices that emanate \u2212 these are a chiral pair, meaning they are non-superimposable mirror images of each other.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The article goes on to explain:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A memoir by Alice Duncan Kemp, who grew up on a cattle station \u2026 in the early 1900s, vividly describes the signalling procedure, in which husband-and-wife expert team Bogie and Mary-Anne selected and pulsed the smoke waves with a left to right curl, to signal \u2018white men\u2019, instead of the more usual right to left spiral. \u2026 To create and understand these signals, you have to be a skilled practical mathematician, Professor Ball says.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s not hard to see what\u2019s been conflated here. Yes, it\u2019s possible to argue that the act of lighting the incense stick and producing \u201ccounter-rotating vortices\u201d does, in a way, implicate mathematics and particularly geometry. As does literally everything that happens in the physical world. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s like saying LeBron James is a skilled mathematician because his three-pointers make nice parabolas. He\u2019s not thinking in his head about the parabolic equation when he\u2019s playing. He probably doesn\u2019t even know what a parabolic equation is. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the case that Professor Ball is talking about, there\u2019s nothing really \u201cmathematical\u201d in any traditional sense about generating smoke signals, and frankly, depending on the size of the vocabulary of the signaling system, it\u2019s probably something you could train apes to do \u2014 even though they have no understanding of language, much less math. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s like saying a child successfully flying a kite is doing math. It\u2019s nonsense. You might as well say that simply by walking across the room you are engaged in mathematics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are very simple phenomena we\u2019re talking about. Throwing a basketball and lighting an incense stick is not rocket science. Your brain is doing \u201ccomplex calculations\u201d when you shoot a basketball, sure. Or even when you walk across the room. And because our mathematics is so sophisticated and precise, we can describe the physical phenomenon to a great degree of sophistication and precision. But that\u2019s only because our mathematics can penetrate reality to that degree. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You don\u2019t have to wonder how precise African folk math or whatever can get in describing that stuff \u2014 to say nothing of the math and mathematical physics required to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rep-ryan-claims-hes-for-working-class\/\" title=\"Rep. Ryan claims he\u2019s for \u2018working class\u2019\">build stuff<\/a> like nuclear reactors, rocket engines, computers, et cetera. That stuff absolutely requires not just numbers, but advanced and highly abstract theories.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But highly abstract theories are out of style now \u2014 and not just in Australia. Braindead oversimplification is the name of the game. Here for example is a recent TedX talk delivered by a woman who teaches mathematics in Canada. She\u2019s also a vice principal in the Ottawa school district. Listen to her understanding of what mathematics is all about:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I guess there\u2019s some good news here. I must be a genius mathematician myself because I made coffee and picked out my own clothes this morning. This will come as news to all of my grade school math teachers, who graded my math exams in a manner that conveyed a certain lack of faith in my mathematical prowess. But if only they\u2019d known that I already passed the math test just by getting dressed before I came to school. If only I\u2019d been as brain damaged as academic elites are today. Then maybe I would have thought to make that argument myself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anyway, a little over a year ago there was an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/article\/the-sinister-attempts-to-decolonise-mathematics\/\">in-depth column<\/a> in The Spectator about this <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">movement<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  to discredit and undermine serious academic disciplines, especially math. It was written by John Armstrong, who teaches at King\u2019s College London and previously taught at Oxford. He\u2019s an actual mathematician with actual credentials. And he summed up the problem with this whole push to \u201cdecolonize\u201d math pretty simply.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The fact is that colonialism is irrelevant to the validity of mathematics. The Mayan civilization was doing sophisticated mathematics in the Americas long before Christopher Colombus arrived on the continent. \u2026 The digits 0123456789 we use today were first written in India and inspired by Chinese mathematics. They were popularised by Persian and Arab mathematicians and then made their way to Europe via the Moors\u2019 conquest of Southern Spain. Admittedly the Moors\u2019 conquest of Spain was a form of colonialism, but apparently not the type of colonialism we are meant to be interested in.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what do these activists mean when they say they want to \u201cdecolonize\u201d math, given that the entire idea of de-colonizing math is completely incoherent? The Arabs were colonizers, too. And why are Australians, of all people, so interested in promoting this idea?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">One possibility is that by some estimates, as the Twitter account I\/o points out, aboriginal Australians happen to have, on average, the second lowest IQ out of any demographic group on the planet. That\u2019s the sort of thing that\u2019s supposed to be unsayable, but it\u2019s impossible to talk about certain groups struggling academically without bringing up the intellectual elephant in the room. There might be a reason why there aren\u2019t many Aboriginals working at NASA. It\u2019s an important point because it means that decolonization, practically speaking, entails dumbing down these subjects or destroying them altogether.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mainly we see with the \u201cdecolonization\u201d agenda the embarrassment that liberal Westerners feel about the fact that their ancestors were far more advanced \u2014 in just about every way, and by every available measure \u2014 than the native people they conquered. The liberal Westerner is constantly looking for ways to even out the score. And we\u2019re seeing that more and more in this country as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The once-respected Nature magazine, for example, recently <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-023-00240-9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">published<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  an editorial (with no byline) that reads: \u201cWhy we have nothing to fear from the decolonization of mathematics.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What\u2019s amazing is that, if you read the whole editorial, you won\u2019t actually find a definition of what \u201cdecolonization\u201d means in this context. You won\u2019t find anything close to a definition, actually. The most you\u2019ll discover is that according to Nature, decolonization:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2026shows that the roots of discovery and invention are shared between many world cultures, which can be particularly empowering for people from historically marginalized groups. Decolonizing science is the antidote to exceptionalism, the idea that any single culture or civilization possessed special abilities in advancing science.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But as we just established, some cultures and civilizations did, indeed, advance science and mathematics more than others. Some of them were colonizers, and some of those colonizers were not white. And regardless, none of this has anything to do with mathematics. Maybe you can argue this belongs in some elective history course somewhere. But it has no place affecting courses on the fundamentals of mathematics, which is exactly what\u2019s happening in this country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pittsburgh Public Schools, for example, recently <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/pittsburgh-public-schools-change-math-instruction-more-equitable\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">announced<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  a plan to make mathematics instruction more \u201cequitable.\u201d What does that mean? Watch:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s not about getting the right answer anymore in Pittsburgh\u2019s math classes. It\u2019s about the \u201cjourney.\u201d The next time your bridge collapses, remember that. Your death isn\u2019t what\u2019s important. What matters is that the incompetent engineer who built the bridge had high self esteem. Yes, you might be lying on the ground, mangled and dying, with a giant metal beam spearing you through your stomach, but as you lay there expiring, just think about the \u201cjourney\u201d that those bridge engineers were on. That should give you comfort.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s the same thing the Canadian teacher said in her TEDx talk. The goal is for everyone to feel like a mathematician, regardless of ability. None of this has anything to do with actually teaching math, of course, which is the point. Students can fail math courses \u2014 and they\u2019ve been doing a lot of that in Pittsburgh. But it\u2019s harder to fail a course that begins with the assumption that every student is gifted in mathematics, no matter what their test scores or actual mathematical aptitude might say.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The other underlying factor that drives all of this superficial decolonization rhetoric and activism is a deep insecurity about actual knowledge on the part of those circulating this garbage. And it\u2019s very well-founded insecurity, especially when it comes to ignorance regarding history.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everything is a cartoon with these people: cartoon history, cartoon philosophy, etc. It\u2019s barely high-school debate talking points stuff \u2014 it\u2019s more elementary school level thinking \u2014 which does make it easier to incorporate into lower education, incidentally.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But to be clear, this isn\u2019t just happening in Pittsburgh. It\u2019s easy to pick on Pittsburgh, for a lot of reasons. As I\u2019ve said <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Mxm9BTAJCBU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">before<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the city is falling apart. But this effort to \u201cdecolonize\u201d math has serious financial backers, and schools everywhere are adopting similar approaches.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2018, Bill Gates\u2019 foundation <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/lincs.ed.gov\/professional-development\/resource-collections\/profile-8826\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">created<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  something called the \u201cPathway to Equitable Math Instruction,\u201d intended for use in grades 6 through 8. The \u201cpathway\u201d <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/equitablemath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/11\/1_STRIDE1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">trains teachers<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  who:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In order to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tennessee-top-ed-official-pushed-californias-math-is-racist-plan\/\" title=\"Tennessee Top Ed Official Pushed California\u2019s \u2018Math Is Racist\u2019 Plan\">embody antiracist math education<\/a>, teachers must engage in critical praxis that interrogates the ways in which they <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/disney-training-documents-insist-america-founded-on-systemic-racism-tell-employees-to-reject-equality\/\" title=\"Disney Training Documents Insist America Founded On \u2018Systemic Racism,\u201d Tell Employees To Reject \u2018Equality\u2019\">perpetuate white supremacy culture<\/a> in their own classrooms, and develop a plan toward antiracist math education to address issues of equity for Black, Latinx, and multilingual students.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why would Bill Gates want to promote nonsense like this? It\u2019s hard to say. No one appears to have asked him. But we do know that, in the years since 2018, math literacy in this country has <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/us-students-math-scores-decline-pisa-assessment-mental-health-concerns-1849812#:~:text=Despite%20stable%20performances%20in%20reading,that%20participated%20in%20the%20assessment.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">plummeted<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. In 2018, something called the \u201cProgram for International Student Assessment\u201d measured the average 15-year-olds\u2019 math aptitude in this country at a score of 478. By 2022, that score had dropped to 465. Meanwhile, data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that U.S. math and reading scores are at their <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2023\/06\/21\/1183445544\/u-s-reading-and-math-scores-drop-to-lowest-level-in-decades\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">lowest level<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  in decades.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can blame that on COVID and wonky gain-of-function research if you want (which Bill Gates also <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/rand-paul-bill-gates-ties-gain-function-research-funding-danger-mankind\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">funded<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  through the W.H.O., by the way). But there\u2019s not a serious person alive who thinks that any of this decolonization propaganda is actually helping these scores move in the right direction. It\u2019s doing the opposite, by design.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is every bit as serious an attack on this country as the airport and bridge raids that I covered yesterday. This is an attack on our ability to build airports and bridges in the first place. And unless we want our bridges to function like Congo\u2019s in the near future, it needs to end.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rarely does a ribbon-cutting event in the Democratic Republic of Congo make global headlines. Despite being one of the largest countries globally\u2014bigger than Mexico\u2014it often goes unnoticed. A few years back, captivating footage from the event garnered widespread interest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":305,"featured_media":2223444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/04\/GettyImages-1130913708.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2223443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/04\/GettyImages-1130913708.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2223443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2223443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2223443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2223444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2223443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2223443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2223443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}