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Northern Ireland27346 Posts
On April 20 2022 00:12 gobbledydook wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2022 15:10 Acrofales wrote:On April 19 2022 12:11 gobbledydook wrote:
Ultimately it's a very difficult topic.
If you stop rumors from spreading by banning or deplatforming, then people find out anyway and become even less trusting of the mainstream discussion. Plus, if it later turns out the rumor is true, that just makes it 10 times worse. Even China couldn't ban news about the existence of Covid forever, and they have the most powerful censorship program in the world.
If you let them spread, then since rumors are false most of the time, you let disinformation grow and spread, which in the case of something life threatening like a global pandemic, or politically important like alleged corruption of a candidate, is also really harmful.
"Fact checking" is not a solution in my opinion. This presumes that the platform, or the organization it hires, has a monopoly on the truth. This is a very dangerous assumption, especially if they make a mistake, or worse, they're malicious. We shouldn't be asking people to trust information presented to them by the platform they're on.
But "fact checking" is largely how journalists work. A single source isn't enough. Investigative journalists need multiple sources and corroborating evidence to publish an article. Why do we treat investigative tweeting any different? Anything else is gossip and I have no qualms at all deplatforming gossip, even if some of it turns out to be true. if we deplatform gossip the entertainment industry would probably collapse immediately.
Is that a bad thing?
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Northern Ireland27346 Posts
On April 20 2022 00:13 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2022 20:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Florida has been banning math textbooks, due to those books supposedly teaching critical race theory and other controversial identity topics. If you can find any examples of such math problems, please share them with me; I'm wondering what Florida is talking about.
My guess is that they found out that math can be done in non-binary, and they misunderstood. It was probably like corporate training and/or email/marketing things where they include a black woman, a hispanic man, an asian woman, and an obviously gay man for the sake of inclusion etc
My bet is some kind of lesson(s) on expected earnings based on ability/education vs actual earnings based on gender/ethnicity
Some kind of lesson on statistics that well, uses statistics properly.
Have they actually published what’s being banned because I’m curious now?!
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On April 20 2022 00:31 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2022 00:13 Mohdoo wrote:On April 19 2022 20:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Florida has been banning math textbooks, due to those books supposedly teaching critical race theory and other controversial identity topics. If you can find any examples of such math problems, please share them with me; I'm wondering what Florida is talking about.
My guess is that they found out that math can be done in non-binary, and they misunderstood. It was probably like corporate training and/or email/marketing things where they include a black woman, a hispanic man, an asian woman, and an obviously gay man for the sake of inclusion etc My bet is some kind of lesson(s) on expected earnings based on ability/education vs actual earnings based on gender/ethnicity Some kind of lesson on statistics that well, uses statistics properly. Have they actually published what’s being banned because I’m curious now?!
"Question: If 6% of Americans identify as LGBTQ+, what's the expected value for the number of sampled Americans who identify as LGBTQ+ if exactly 350 Americans are sampled?
Answer: + Show Spoiler +"
On April 19 2022 22:42 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2022 22:39 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:"Like most reasonable Americans, I’m considering moving to Florida to keep my children safe from math." Well played. But in all seriousness, I've really tried looking for any examples of CRT math problems that were in Florida's banned textbooks, and I haven't found a single one yet. And I do not think you will be able too, from what I was reading even the titles and versions of the banned text books are not released in this "very transparent" process. But his fans do not care, they just care that CRT is bad and Big Ron is protecting them from it. There was a few good lines in the article but I liked this part the most I think. + Show Spoiler +Don’t get me started on any K-12 books that promote mathematical filth like binomials, trinomials and polynomials. THESE ARE CHILDREN, FOR GOD’S SAKE!
And while I have no evidence of this, and if I did I wouldn’t share it with you, I’m sure these banned textbooks included pages of nonsense about Critical Rhombus Theory, which asserts that square supremacy is a social construct embedded in Euclidean geometry. There’s no way I’ll allow some teacher to make my kids feel guilty about the history of shapes.
I will not have my children learning Critical Rhombus Theory, because #allquadrilateralsmatter.
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On April 20 2022 00:11 gobbledydook wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2022 17:54 Simberto wrote:On April 19 2022 15:10 Acrofales wrote:On April 19 2022 12:11 gobbledydook wrote:
Ultimately it's a very difficult topic.
If you stop rumors from spreading by banning or deplatforming, then people find out anyway and become even less trusting of the mainstream discussion. Plus, if it later turns out the rumor is true, that just makes it 10 times worse. Even China couldn't ban news about the existence of Covid forever, and they have the most powerful censorship program in the world.
If you let them spread, then since rumors are false most of the time, you let disinformation grow and spread, which in the case of something life threatening like a global pandemic, or politically important like alleged corruption of a candidate, is also really harmful.
"Fact checking" is not a solution in my opinion. This presumes that the platform, or the organization it hires, has a monopoly on the truth. This is a very dangerous assumption, especially if they make a mistake, or worse, they're malicious. We shouldn't be asking people to trust information presented to them by the platform they're on.
But "fact checking" is largely how journalists work. A single source isn't enough. Investigative journalists need multiple sources and corroborating evidence to publish an article. Why do we treat investigative tweeting any different? Anything else is gossip and I have no qualms at all deplatforming gossip, even if some of it turns out to be true. The big question here is who gets to decide what is gossip and what is fact checked enough. I am very sceptical of a private company doing that. Ultimately, the only thing that Twitter cares about is how much money Twitter makes. They are not really interested in the public good. But i also don't have a better solution. Just letting everything stand doesn't work due to the hate it ferments and the information bubbles it creates. That just allows the population to be split in different groups with different facts, which kills all discussion. Having the state in control also seems slightly scary, but also impossible because there simply are not enough resources to do that in a legal way, ideally involving courts. I guess you could have some laws about journalistic integrity if you act like a journalist on any platform, but that would be very hard to actually handle, especially in any relevant timeframe. Exactly. fact checking is not a bad thing. having the platform decide which fact check to use is the problem.
Fact checking is not a bad thing in principle. As it's implemented, it has a whole lot less to do with facts than with political narratives and backing them up with the perception of being backed by the truth.
Back in 2008-ish the fact checking environment looked like Snopes debugging internet hoaxes and factcheck.org which made a very strong effort to discern between factually and politically objectionable (can't really speak to if either of these two are still reasonably level-headed). The popularity of "fact checking" quickly grew to the point that any two-bit operation like CNN or Politifact does "fact checking" in a manner that is little more than pushing political narratives under the guise of defending truth. Social media doing the same is even worse. Evidently really effective as a propaganda mechanism, but has little to do with facts.
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On April 20 2022 00:31 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2022 00:13 Mohdoo wrote:On April 19 2022 20:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Florida has been banning math textbooks, due to those books supposedly teaching critical race theory and other controversial identity topics. If you can find any examples of such math problems, please share them with me; I'm wondering what Florida is talking about.
My guess is that they found out that math can be done in non-binary, and they misunderstood. It was probably like corporate training and/or email/marketing things where they include a black woman, a hispanic man, an asian woman, and an obviously gay man for the sake of inclusion etc My bet is some kind of lesson(s) on expected earnings based on ability/education vs actual earnings based on gender/ethnicity Some kind of lesson on statistics that well, uses statistics properly. Have they actually published what’s being banned because I’m curious now?!
If there’s 4 dads and 2 moms at a party how many couples are there?
+ Show Spoiler +
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On April 19 2022 22:39 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:"Like most reasonable Americans, I’m considering moving to Florida to keep my children safe from math." Well played. But in all seriousness, I've really tried looking for any examples of CRT math problems that were in Florida's banned textbooks, and I haven't found a single one yet.
You're not likely to ever find any, in any math book published ever, considering CRT is a graduate-level subject of study.
No, this is just another Republican political maneuver whereby they replace "any discussion about race that we don't want to have" with "that CRT thing that pedophile Democrat elites are teaching your kids". It's a marketing vs. product quality issue, where the truth and what resonates with the audience are almost necessarily mutually exclusive.
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On April 20 2022 02:38 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2022 00:50 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 20 2022 00:31 WombaT wrote:On April 20 2022 00:13 Mohdoo wrote:On April 19 2022 20:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Florida has been banning math textbooks, due to those books supposedly teaching critical race theory and other controversial identity topics. If you can find any examples of such math problems, please share them with me; I'm wondering what Florida is talking about.
My guess is that they found out that math can be done in non-binary, and they misunderstood. It was probably like corporate training and/or email/marketing things where they include a black woman, a hispanic man, an asian woman, and an obviously gay man for the sake of inclusion etc My bet is some kind of lesson(s) on expected earnings based on ability/education vs actual earnings based on gender/ethnicity Some kind of lesson on statistics that well, uses statistics properly. Have they actually published what’s being banned because I’m curious now?! "Question: If 6% of Americans identify as LGBTQ+, what's the expected value for the number of sampled Americans who identify as LGBTQ+ if exactly 350 Americans are sampled? Answer: + Show Spoiler +" On April 19 2022 22:42 JimmiC wrote:On April 19 2022 22:39 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:"Like most reasonable Americans, I’m considering moving to Florida to keep my children safe from math." Well played. But in all seriousness, I've really tried looking for any examples of CRT math problems that were in Florida's banned textbooks, and I haven't found a single one yet. And I do not think you will be able too, from what I was reading even the titles and versions of the banned text books are not released in this "very transparent" process. But his fans do not care, they just care that CRT is bad and Big Ron is protecting them from it. There was a few good lines in the article but I liked this part the most I think. + Show Spoiler +Don’t get me started on any K-12 books that promote mathematical filth like binomials, trinomials and polynomials. THESE ARE CHILDREN, FOR GOD’S SAKE!
And while I have no evidence of this, and if I did I wouldn’t share it with you, I’m sure these banned textbooks included pages of nonsense about Critical Rhombus Theory, which asserts that square supremacy is a social construct embedded in Euclidean geometry. There’s no way I’ll allow some teacher to make my kids feel guilty about the history of shapes. I will not have my children learning Critical Rhombus Theory, because #allquadrilateralsmatter. It is pretty funny that they went with Math first, like why not history or English where you could at least pretend (because nothing close to CRT is taught in primary) there was things worthy of removing. They have such an extremely low bar set for their voter of checking any of the bullshit they spew and they get proven right over and over. It would be funny if it was not so sad.
I totally agree, although I believe that history books, science books, and English texts have been rejected/banned by certain states for decades, for explaining history that isn't completely whitewashed, explaining evolution (and not creationism / intelligent design / religion), offering controversial social and cultural narratives that allow students to reflect and learn about real life, etc. I think math is probably one of the last universal school subjects to be attacked for political/ religious/ conservative reasons*, but we're simply so used to the other subjects being attacked that most non-teachers have forgotten about those issues (which isn't good).
*There has certainly - always - been plenty of scrutiny about math, how it's taught, New Math / Common Core / whatever, but I've found that most of those issues aren't necessarily from a politically-motivated premise, but rather people just not understanding mathematics or mathematics education. I'm used to parents complaining "Back in my day, we did math differently" without any particularly partisan premise. On the other hand, with this whole "math textbooks have CRT in them", it's an entirely fabricated conservative talking point about content, which is a little more new to me (and, I think, my teaching subject).
On April 20 2022 03:07 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2022 22:39 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:"Like most reasonable Americans, I’m considering moving to Florida to keep my children safe from math." Well played. But in all seriousness, I've really tried looking for any examples of CRT math problems that were in Florida's banned textbooks, and I haven't found a single one yet. You're not likely to ever find any, in any math book published ever, considering CRT is a graduate-level subject of study. No, this is just another Republican political maneuver whereby they replace "any discussion about race that we don't want to have" with "that CRT thing that pedophile Democrat elites are teaching your kids". It's a marketing vs. product quality issue, where the truth and what resonates with the audience are almost necessarily mutually exclusive.
I agree, and the level of willful ignorance it takes for this kind of belief is an ironically large slap in the face when it's done to affect educators who are trying to teach.
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My guess at the semi-reasonable explanation for banning textbooks was going to be that they banned Common Core at the same time as (what they think is) CRT, and a bunch of math textbooks had incorporated Common Core stuff. Banning Common Core is dumb, too, but to my understanding, lots of parents complain about it so it wouldn’t be shocking if they thought banning that at the same time would be a win.
If that was the case, though, I think we would have seen that defense offered by now, so maybe they really are insisting these math textbooks are racist against white people or something.
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On April 20 2022 04:08 ChristianS wrote:
My guess at the semi-reasonable explanation for banning textbooks was going to be that they banned Common Core at the same time as (what they think is) CRT, and a bunch of math textbooks had incorporated Common Core stuff. Banning Common Core is dumb, too, but to my understanding, lots of parents complain about it so it wouldn’t be shocking if they thought banning that at the same time would be a win.
If that was the case, though, I think we would have seen that defense offered by now, so maybe they really are insisting these math textbooks are racist against white people or something.
Looking at at least one example of a banned book, the Common Core explanation seems a reasonable guess as to why it was banned:
Book overview
Common Core standards associated with it (math 2nd grade)
Granted, the high-level of what 2nd graders have to learn doesn't change much, so the devil, if it exists, is going to be in the details. But it seems to overlap a lot with Common Core and I don't see any explicit CRT-type stuff. Couple of the other books had "social awareness" type special topics; that might be the CRT. The official statement also cites Florida state standards and notes that 59% of textbooks were accepted, for context.
I've not seen anyone actually look at any of the rejected or accepted books so far in the news reporting. The above was the best I could find. Florida did make a list of them but according to the news no such list exists, so what can we do?
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On April 20 2022 05:53 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2022 04:08 ChristianS wrote:
My guess at the semi-reasonable explanation for banning textbooks was going to be that they banned Common Core at the same time as (what they think is) CRT, and a bunch of math textbooks had incorporated Common Core stuff. Banning Common Core is dumb, too, but to my understanding, lots of parents complain about it so it wouldn’t be shocking if they thought banning that at the same time would be a win.
If that was the case, though, I think we would have seen that defense offered by now, so maybe they really are insisting these math textbooks are racist against white people or something. Looking at at least one example of a banned book, the Common Core explanation seems a reasonable guess as to why it was banned: Book overviewCommon Core standards associated with it (math 2nd grade)Granted, the high-level of what 2nd graders have to learn doesn't change much, so the devil, if it exists, is going to be in the details. But it seems to overlap a lot with Common Core and I don't see any explicit CRT-type stuff. Couple of the other books had "social awareness" type special topics; that might be the CRT. The official statement also cites Florida state standards and notes that 59% of textbooks were accepted, for context. I've not seen anyone actually look at any of the rejected or accepted books so far in the news reporting. The above was the best I could find. Florida did make a list of them but according to the news no such list exists, so what can we do?
I wonder if anyone who objects to that 2nd grade list can figure out which of those things is specific to Common Core (i.e., wasn't already being previously taught before Common Core, and won't be taught now that this book has been banned), and then can additionally explain why these new, specific things are bad or unnecessary for general math education.
If you want the answer: + Show Spoiler +I'm fairly certain that literally nothing there is new or unique to Common Core, and it's all standard learning-the-fundamentals for basic addition, subtraction, number sense, etc. for early elementary school students.
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Would be nice if any of these books were actually reasonably available for perusal online. Finding that one outline of one book took a while in and of itself, and as you say the big general concepts aren't really what would be objectionable as much as the implementation.
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On April 20 2022 06:13 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2022 05:53 LegalLord wrote:On April 20 2022 04:08 ChristianS wrote:
My guess at the semi-reasonable explanation for banning textbooks was going to be that they banned Common Core at the same time as (what they think is) CRT, and a bunch of math textbooks had incorporated Common Core stuff. Banning Common Core is dumb, too, but to my understanding, lots of parents complain about it so it wouldn’t be shocking if they thought banning that at the same time would be a win.
If that was the case, though, I think we would have seen that defense offered by now, so maybe they really are insisting these math textbooks are racist against white people or something. Looking at at least one example of a banned book, the Common Core explanation seems a reasonable guess as to why it was banned: Book overviewCommon Core standards associated with it (math 2nd grade)Granted, the high-level of what 2nd graders have to learn doesn't change much, so the devil, if it exists, is going to be in the details. But it seems to overlap a lot with Common Core and I don't see any explicit CRT-type stuff. Couple of the other books had "social awareness" type special topics; that might be the CRT. The official statement also cites Florida state standards and notes that 59% of textbooks were accepted, for context. I've not seen anyone actually look at any of the rejected or accepted books so far in the news reporting. The above was the best I could find. That is because Florida will not release the list. Anyone want to take a stab at the reason for this? Anyone want to explain how you can have a "transparent process" and not even give the list of books rejected let alone the why?
This article says only 14 of the 42 have "common core". Show nested quote +Officials said 42 of the books include the “unsolicited addition” of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and critical race theory. Fourteen of those also follow the Common Core teaching standards instead of the state’s new Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (B.E.S.T.) Standards. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/won-t-tell-us-florida-002700198.htmlIt does have an example, from a text book in Missouri mind you, about Maya Angelou's past. I'm not sure on the grade level maybe DPB can say, but certainly not elementary. https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/04/18/wheres-the-states-evidence-for-rejecting-54-math-textbooks-editorial/Show nested quote +In its announcement last week, the state did not provide any specific examples of objectionable content from the books, nor when asked did officials fill in the obvious omission. No, no, no. Floridians can’t handle that kind of truth. How’s that for transparency?
Those two Missouri questions (Angelou and pimp) are super fucked up. Given that the math skill being assessed in those questions is learning systems of equations (two equations, two variables), it's probably Algebra 1, so the textbook is probably for middle schoolers or early high school students. Those are both incredibly stupid problems though, and there are countless other, better problems where the context of the paragraph actually helps students understand systems of equations better. I definitely think that rejecting a textbook, based on these two problems, is warranted, although those two problems aren't related to CRT or Common Core.
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someone at least should say banning common core math is also ridiculous. it doesn’t become a more reasonable explanation if we switch crt for common core.
possibly more ridiculous given only one is actually taught to the demographic.
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On April 20 2022 07:34 brian wrote:
someone at least should say banning common core math is also ridiculous. it doesn’t become a more reasonable explanation if we switch crt for common core.
possibly more ridiculous given only one is actually taught to the demographic.
That's a good point. The occasional, weird/bad question that's found in some Common Core math textbooks is no different than the occasional, weird/bad question found in other math textbooks (or literally any school subject's textbook), and these concerns that parents have (e.g., standardized testing, not understanding their children's math homework, teachers are introducing an additional method for solving a math problem that parents never learned, etc.) are not unique to Common Core or New Math or any other new-sounding label for math skills or math standards
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Apparently, Florida replaced Common Core with their state scheme B.E.S.T., which purports to offer improvements over Common Core.
Link here
If their goal is to implement their new standards and not use Common Core any more, it makes sense to stop using textbooks that follow the Common Core method.
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On April 20 2022 11:20 gobbledydook wrote:Apparently, Florida replaced Common Core with their state scheme B.E.S.T., which purports to offer improvements over Common Core. Link hereIf their goal is to implement their new standards and not use Common Core any more, it makes sense to stop using textbooks that follow the Common Core method.
A hundred dollars says that Florida's governor can't point out something that BEST Math does differently - let alone better - than CC Math. It's the same skills and content and teachers, with the same likelihood of finding a math textbook that has a few weird/bad math problems.
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EPT
