Ordinary Brilliance: Understanding Black Learners' Conceptions of Smartness as Pushing Back Against Antiblackness

• In Event: Interrogating Mathematics Classroom Teaching Practices for the Pursuit of Racial and Intersectional Justice

Abstract

Despite often being framed as something that is innate and static, smartness is much more complex. Historically, smartness (similar to intelligence and ability) has been framed as something only White people have access to and the field of mathematics has been framed as White, male, and Eurocentric dominant (Hottinger, 2016). However, smartness is locally and socially constructed (Hatt, 2012; Gresalfi, Martin, Hand, & Greeno, 2009), meaning what it means to be smart and who is smart is contingent upon norms, structures, and biases in each mathematics classroom, and sociocultural aspects including interactions between and among teachers and peers. With this in mind, it is important to understand how Black learners conceptualize smartness in mathematics classrooms.

In this study, I describe how five fifth grade Black learners conceptualize smartness during a summer mathematics program. In some ways, these Black learners conceptualize smartness in ways highlighted in the literature, such as getting answers quickly and correctly, earning good grades, and having opportunities to share their work publicly to the class frequently. However, these same learners highlighted other ways they conceptualize smartness, such as working hard, making mistakes, listening to others, learning from others, and taking good notes. Whereas the initial conceptions focus on external affirmation, the second group of conceptions attend to internal affirmation and focus on learning.

Across the 5 Black learners, three themes emerged about their conceptions of smartness: (i) superficially similar, but substantively different, (ii) malleable, and (iii) pushing back against anti-Blackness. In this paper, I focus on the third theme. As outlined in Martin, Price, Moore, 2019). There are three different forms anti-Blackness is manifested through violence, epistemologically, symbolically, and physically. Specifically, I highlight the ways in which two Black learners, Kasim and La’Rayne, push back against anti-Blackness through their interviews, surveys, demonstrating their intellect, thoughtfulness, and confidence in their mathematical abilities. For instance, Kasim pushes back against epistemological violence, in that he sees himself as smart and capable in mathematics. In an interview when asked about being smart he acknowledged that “He’s a star student in his math class, helps others, and teachers wish there were more of him in class”. Kasim is an example of the ways in which a Black learner pushes back against the narrative that Black learners are ineducable. Another example of pushing back against anti-Blackness is La’Rayne’s participation during mathematics instruction. Despite writing on her survey “Yes, no I’m not smart in math because I don’t know the problems' ' encountered in her ways of being in class. For example, often in class she spoke confidently, she consistently raised her hand, stood up in her seat, and revoiced her peers' thinking”. In other contexts it would not be unusual for La’Rayne's ways of being to be reprimanded (Morris, 2007: Morris & Perry, 2017), but in this classroom her ways of being were accepted and pushed back against the symbolic violence Black girls are often the victim of.

Author

• Charles Wilkes, San Diego State University
  Presenting Author