The Case of Taking a Knee in Math (Ep26)

Empowerment Starts Here with Marian Dingle (click here to listen to the episode).

Scroll down to access links and other resources mentioned in Episode 26- “The Case of Taking a Knee in Math.”

Ep26.Marian Dingle2 I initially had Marian on my radar because I wanted to talk with her about gradelessness and the gradeless movement in education. If you remember from Season 1, Ep09, I had Peter Anderson on to talk about how he found his way into the gradeless movement and now how he has been finding his way beyond it.

Marian and Peter were part of an online conversation about gradelessness facilitated by a mutual Twitter friend. She wrote a beautiful piece about her concerns with gradelessness that brilliantly put into words that challenged gradelessness in the way that I supported. With us talking about gradelessness in Season 1, I thought Season 3 would be a good time to revisit the topic.

However, when I recorded the Case of the Black Female Educator (Ep27) with Nyia Dykes (that will be available on 4/10/18), I could not help but to think about how Marian would be able to add to this conversation about the black female educator. So after Nyia and I were done recording our case, I hung up and immediately contacted Marian.

Just like with Ep21, when the pre-chat changed the topic from equity to family secrets, my pre-chat with Marian changed as well. Instead of gradelessness as the pressing theme, I discovered social justice to be the theme of focus. Specifically, Marian was charged over teaching math as a form of social justice. This shift offered an even greater relevance to our conversation on the black female educator and added value to the overall conversation on the ESH podcast in a way that I could not have imagined.

In the recorded call, you are going to hear Marian offer four (possibly five) ways that math teachers can do social justice work in the classroom. You will hear her talk about four to five ways that they can join Colin Kaepernick in taking a knee. And honestly, if that is all she had to offer, those five strategies, that would have been more than enough. But Marian was on fire!

She not only talked about the strategies, she also talked about structural racism as in housing and neighborhood construction (yep, similar to what I discussed in Ep23). She talked about the racial bias of who gets identified as gifted (yep, similar to what was discussed by Dr. Sarah Thomas in Ep25); and she talked about the moral conflict that African American teachers have teaching inside of the K12 infrastructure that protects white supremacy as a system. Now she did not use the term white supremacy but she did not have to. Those of us who study white supremacy as a system will hear it. And resolving this moral conflict is exactly what I think Nykia Dykes, in next week’s episode, embodies. It is why I had to contact Marian to be in Season 2 because I know there are many African American educators embracing the moral demands of teaching black and brown students in America and she is definitely one of them.

Please listen to the conversation with Marian! There is a lot to learn about social justice in and beyond the math classroom!!

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Key Points Discussed:

Gloria Ladson-Billings
Culturally Relevant Teaching/Culturally Relevant Instruction
Giftedness
Colin Kaepernick
Maya Angelou
Hidden Figures
Mathematics
Black Representation
AP Classes/Testing
Taking a Knee
Social Justice

Resources and Links Mentioned in the Episode:

Hidden Figures (Movie)

“But That’s Good Teaching! The Case for Culturally Relevant Teaching” Article by Gloria Ladson-Billings

“The Phenomenon of Student Powerlessness and Student Achievement: An Instrumental, Multi-case Study of Three Teachers Identified as Successfully Serving Low-income African American Students” Dissertation by Angela Dye

“Equity in the Gradeless Classroom Roundtable” a collaborative writing piece in which Marian Dingle contributed.

Marian Dingle’s Blog

Terms and Concepts:

Colin Kaepernick, Taking a Knee, Social Justice, Giftedness, Gifted and Talented, Hidden Figures, Mathematics, Women of Color, apolitical, Mayo Angelo, Math Intuition, Common Core

Other Episodes Mentioned:

Ep09- The Case of Gradelessness

Ep21- The Case of Family Secrets

Ep23- The Case of City X

Ep25- The Case of Technology and Schooling from the Margins

Ep27- The Case of the Black Female Educator (to be released 4/10/18)

Mistakes/Corrections:

Please feel free to let me know if you catch any mistakes. Thanks!!

The Full Link for the Episode…

http://eshpodcast.libsyn.com/the-case-of-taking-a-knee-in-math