Racial equity is important, but it doesn't trump the right to excel

 James S. Robbins is another voice of sanity in the education debate.

The intellectual nadir of the attack on achievement is the emergence of “ethnomathematics,” which seeks to “dismantle racism” by promoting notions such as math not being objective and deemphasizing the focus on getting the “right answer.” The Oregon Department of Education promoted a professional development course on Equitable Math Instruction, and the California draft Mathematics Framework document promotes these concepts.

 

This strain of thought would have the practical effect of giving those students who struggle with math a moral justification for not getting any better and notifying those who are gifted that there is probably something wrong with them. If this framework spreads, it could condemn a generation of children to irrelevance in science, technology, engineering and math fields, where the right answer is not a matter of opinion.

Contrast the ethnomathematics message with the inspirational subject of the movie “Hidden Figures.” That film lauded the contributions of three African American women working for NASA in the early 1960s, using their superior math skills to support America in the Cold War space race while overcoming segregation-era institutional racism. This is the type of uplifting math story that kids of color need to hear, not divisive nonsense about how having to “show your work” is inherently racist. 

We need more sanity.

Howard University's classics department is an incubator for Black equality. Don't close it.

 I'm not sure how this got past the USA Today editors. It's by Anika T. Prather. It's sane, it's intelligent, and it goes against the current anti-intellectual "tear down Western civilization" orthodoxy. It does so using facts and logic. I wonder who was fired over this and if there will be a public apology.

The beauty about Howard University is that, since its founding, each student has at least some exposure to the works of the canon. I believe this classical foundation is what produced people like Justice Thurgood Marshall, a graduate of Howard's law school who did more than just practice the trade of his career but served all of humanity through his work. 

The list of Black scholars who have come out of Howard and been touched by the classics is extensive: Toni Morrison minored in classics; Zora Neale Hurston took classes in the field; Chadwick Boseman had classical theatre training while a student at Howard, and was taught by the actress Phylicia Rashad. I minored in theatre at Howard, and we are all well versed in Greek tragedy and Roman comedy.

Alain Locke believed so much in reading from the canon that the hall where the classics department is housed is named after him. Locke, who taught at Howard, became the first African American Rhodes Scholar and is considered the father of the Harlem Renaissance.

Read the classics. They will enrich your life in many ways. Anyone telling you otherwise is lying and merely wants your intellectual world reduced so that you are forced to depend on them to learn what to think.