The Need for SySTEMic Reform: How the Current STEM Movement Prevents Humane Mathematics

• In Event: 56.073 - Slowing Down the STEM Train: Questions, Critiques, and Reflections About the STEM Education Movement

Abstract

I analyze language used in professional development for teachers, mathematics reform packages sold to schools, media reports, research articles, and national reform documents to show an overwhelming propensity to objectify students/citizens into numbers that will feed a STEM pipeline, commodities to improve our economy or global standing in the world. I highlight how language of “access” and “achievement” in the current STEM movement perpetuates a view of mathematics that is static, universal, culture free, and all good. Yet, researchers have argued convincingly against a rational, universal logic that allows mathematics to operate outside of individuals, morals, or power relations (Clarke, 2001; Ernest, 2004; Restivo, 2007; Harris, 2015). In fact, the specific mathematical fields most supported with funding are generally in economics and warfare (Boob-Bavnbek & Hoyrup, 2003).

I use a sociopolitical framework that recognizes power is present within any mathematics classroom or endeavor (Author, 2013a, b; Walshaw, 2013; Valero & Zevenbergen, 2004). We do not do mathematics in a neutral manner. We are always (re)making what mathematics is, who the activity is by and for, and for what purposes we do it (Author, 2011). I have developed a three-part definition of equity that includes our relationship to each other and our planet (Author, 2002). I suggest we look beyond issues of access and achievement (closing the achievement gap or getting more students of different backgrounds to enter STEM fields), especially if doing mathematics means: going along with the labels/categories in which you are placed; never questioning the role of quantification in classifying or dehumanizing people; leaving one’s cultures, languages, emotions, and/or bodies outside of the classroom; pretending that school mathematics problems are “real world,” or only being able to reproduce mathematical activity already sanctioned by the mathematics community rather than invent new forms.

In documents like the Common Core State Standards (National Governor’s Association, 2010), mathematics is presented as an all-positive tool useful for every citizen. Teachers are often unknowingly complicit in this arrangement and act as if all students should want (or need) to learn mathematics. They see mathematics as beautiful and useful for uncovering things normally invisible. Yet, for students, school mathematics serves to obscure things that were previously visible to them. Even many equity projects have an underlying deficit perspective in terms of trying to get more students to learn mathematics. I have referred to this perspective as “people need math” and have countered that claim by suggesting that “math needs people” (Author, 2002, 2008). Only when we recognize mathematics as a human activity can we imagine how a group historically excluded from mathematics might ask different questions and have different purposes for doing mathematics and, therefore, contribute to different forms. Rather than simply critique the current STEM movement, I offer guiding principles to build a more humane STEM movement. These principles include such things as: Mathematics is a verb, not a noun; There isn’t one mathematics; there are many; All mathematics teachers are identity workers; and Mathematics’ superiority to other disciplines has no basis.

Author

• Rochelle Gutierrez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign