Critical Numeracy
Summary:
In this episode we discuss critical numeracy, mathematics, and how numbers shape relationships in our society with former co-host Atasi Das.
Connect with Atasi Das:
Email: atasi.das@gmail.com
Twitter: @_atasi_das
Atati’s Go To’s:
Transcript (Please Excuse Errors)
Please see mentions/resources list at the end.
Transcript (Please excuse any errors):
Please see mentions/resources list at the end.
[Music Intro ♫]
LaToya [LS]: Hey listeners, welcome to Abolition Science Radio. We're your hosts, I'm LaToya Strong.
Aderinsola [AG]: And I'm Aderinsola Gilbert, and we're here to discuss science, math, technology, and other things.
LS: And their relationship to colonialism.
AG: Oppression.
LS: Resistance.
AG: Education.
LS: And liberation.
AG: All through the lens of abolition.
LS: Join us as we learn and unlearn.
AG: Critique and create.
LS: While building community.
[ ♫ Music fade out.]
[00:29]
LS: Hey listeners, we are back for our December episode. So, Derin, what’s up? How’s it going?
AG: Uh, it’s going. Toya, it’s…ha, I feel, everything’s a blur right now. You know, I can’t believe right now that we are heading into December.
LS: We are. Oh, let’s – slow down. Ha ha ha. This will air in December but I’m gonna need you to slow down. It is Sunday, November 8.
AG: Oh yeah, you’re right.
LS: So it is the day after the winner of the presidential election was announced.
AG: Oh yeah.
LS: But listen cause, October. I blinked and October was gone.
AG: Aha.
LS: And there’s thirty one days in October. You know the months with 31 days be lasting forever. Ha haha.
AG: How are you doing? Especially after that long blink and 31 days are..?
[1:19]
LS: Um, I’m doing – I’m ok. I think all things considered, I’m ok. Like, I do have some ups and some downs. This damn pandemic – it’s weighing on me. Like, it’s just. I’ve had enough. Ha ha ha. I have had enough.
Yeah, I feel like every episode I complain about the pandemic, haha. People. Hahah. People won’t stop – they won’t stop. They – I think I told you this, they busted a warehouse party here in the Bronx, over 500 people.
AG: What!
LS: Not social distancing, people weren’t wearing – uh, some people had masks, lots of people weren’t wearing masks. There was like another party in Brooklyn, over 300 people. Another one in Queens, it’s like – come on y’all. Come on!
AG: Please! Please. We know all of these things. I mean, can we skip Halloween for a year. That – I don’t know.
LS: Yeah, and it’s just like, no one is saying don’t do nothing. Just, like, don’t do that.
(Both laugh.)
LS: Stop spreading the damn virus.
[2:24]
LS: But anyway – that’s how I’m doing.
AG: Ah.
LS: And this election. Like, I’m, and the election, but – whatever.
AG: Nah, I mean, let’s hold a little space for that. I mean, were you one of those people dancing out in the streets?
(Both laugh.)
AG: No shade, y’all.
LS: I cannot stand you. I can’t stand you.
(Both continue laughing.)
LS: Oh my god.
AG: Yeah, I mean so it looks like the reign of Agent Orange is over. As of January 20, 2021. How are you processing it all? You know, especially the really long, dramatic, drawn out counting process?
LS: Oh my gosh. I’m … a he he he, I don’t know what these states policy’s is, but they gotta get it together. So, for me, when I think about the Democrats and the Republicans, the difference between them to me is the same as the difference between Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin.
[3:29]
AG: Ha ha ha!
LS: Ha ha ha. You’re – ha - stop laughing – I’m being serious. Because, they are saying different things, and there’s different intention behind the things that they say, but the things that they’re doing look the same.
[3:52]
AG: On point.
LS: So there might be some difference in how those things are done.
AG: Yup.
LS: So, I don’t think Carole Baskin was feeding, you know, expired meat, ha haha you know – we can point, there are some differences that we can see. In Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin, differences we can see in Democrats and Republicans. But like, the overall thing that’s going on, is the same. Which is the settler-state.
AG: Mm.
LS: Um.
AG: Right on point. I don’t think there could be a better analogy between the two. Yeah.
LS: Why thank yous! Came up with it myself when I was trying to explain to someone. Hey! I had an epiphany, I was like, oh, you know what.
AG: Right on point. It seems like every time, especially a presidential election year, but really just with any election year right. It’s just – aren’t we tired of just voting for the lesser of the two evil. Aren’t we tired of that dynamic?!
LS: Speak on it. Speak. On. It.
AG: Right?!
LS: And I, you know, the way like whiteness and white supremacy works, is it forces people who don’t want to vote for the lesser of two evils to vote for them.
AG: Mhmm. I feel like I enter that booth and am thinking about, how can I cause the least amount of harm? I don’t even know if that even is causing the least amount of harm, no. No.
LS: No. It’s not. I think for some people, there will be less harm. But for others, the harm – you know, we talked about this –
AG: Yep.
LS: - remains the same and very visceral regardless of who is there. I – I mean, the solution is simple in my mind. Ha ha ha. The solution is simple, is that we, like this land must be repatriated or rematriated to indigenous people and reparations needs to be given to Black and Indigenous people.
[5:43]
[AG snaps.]
LS: And I think –
[AG continues snaps.]
AG: Yes.
LS: With like, even, you know I was listening to Biden’s little speech that he gave and you know, something that stuck out to me. He was like, the possibility of America, this American dream. And they also kept referring to the ‘soul’ of America. I was like – I don’t know what America y’all have been in, but this soul ain’t it.
AG: Ha ha.
LS: This soul is foul. America has a foul soul.
AG: Mm.
LS: And so, in the way that he was evoking the possibilities in the American dream was just very much in line with, you know, “54-40-or fight” and Manifest Destiny. And so the core of what’s made America to them, still isn’t these very horrific things that we have to contend with. And like, undo. Like, land theft and exploitation and all that. And so, that’s going to continue.
[6:32]
AG: Yep.
LS: Um, so, like you said, the work isn’t done, and so all this energy, all this organizing, all this - you know – phone banking, calling and texting, that people have been doing. Like, that energy – keep it and direct it to folks who are doing the work, who was doing that work before the 4 year election came up, plug in there.
AG: Mhmm. Yes. Yes. And, I mean, again. I’m happy Trump is out. Yes.
LS: Mhmm, mhmm.
AG: That is a step, a step. I also think especially to the white liberals, and others really who are buying into this system is this whole energy that people are talking about reaching across the aisle. I think you really need to look across that aisle and think about that energy that is spent there versus this energy to try to convince people to see that you’re human, and that your life matters, too.
In terms of holding these newly appointment members of Congress accountable, is also to say people voted you there to do the work. And there’s a lot of focus now on getting Trump voters to be back acclimated to the soul of America that they’re talking about. And it’s just like…ah…
[7:54]
LS: Right. But the soul of America is them Trump voters.
AG: Thank you ha ha.
LS: That’s what I don’t understand. Uhhh.
AG: Ah. Yes. I’m glad old dude’s out, but the work continues and I hope that that energy and support will continue. And also you know, of course – shout out to Black women. Because – y’all. Yet again, yet again.
LS: And again and again and again.
AG: And again. Carrying the load on this one. Again.
LS: Back’s just hurting.
AG: Ha ha ha.
LS: Stop laughing at me ha ha ha.
[Both laughing.]
AG: But you […] – I don’t know. Yo. Yes.
LS: Back’s hurting, thighs all burning from carrying the weight.
AG: Seriously. Seriously. Um. The organizing efforts to combat voter suppression.
LS: Mhmm.
AG: Um. The results that we witnessed on - I don’t even know what day it was to be exact now – was it Saturday, we finally?...it was official?
LS: It was Saturday. Yeah.
AG: Damn.
LS: I mean, but technically, it’s not official until the Electoral College people do their vote in November or December, whenever it happens. And I think the Supreme Court passed something where every state has to say what’s in their laws. I don’t know. Y’all can google it. Y’all can google it.
AG: Yeah.
[9:23]
LS: But, what are you listening to? Oh – or, did you have anything else to say? My bad.
AG: Oh, no, the only thing – I had a question just for, is the folks out in Nevada – what you all counting out there? Y’all. I mean, what tools were you using to count?
LS: Ha ha ha.
AG: I’m just curious. That’s the only thing I have to say because, it was a lot. But we appreciate you. Thank you for counting the votes.
LS: I just imagine a bunch of Black aunties over there counting, is like, y’all are gonna get the numbers when we finish with it.
(Both laughing.)
AG: Yes.
[10:01]
LS: Oh, what number are you on? Mind ya business.
(Both laughing.)
LS: They don’t make enough. Whatever they was paying them, it wasn’t enough.
AG: No.
LS: The poll workers.
AG: Did you know in Atlanta they were staying overnight? Like, um, they had passed some –
LS: Are you serious?
AG: Yeah, they stayed throughout the night counting the votes.
LS: That’s wild.
AG: So, yeah, it seems like that whole process is state by state. Or even maybe county by county how they be counting it. But, um. I’m glad it’s over.
LS: Mhmm.
AG: For this iteration. But, um. Yeah that’s all I wanted to add.
[10:35]
LS: Ok. So, I’ve been listening to H.E.R.
AG: Oh, ok.
LS: She released a new song called “Damage” and ooh, it’s good. It is good. Who are you listening to? – I got that one song just on repeat. Who you been listening to?
AG: You know what, I took it back. I’m listening to “I Can’t Stand the Rain” by Ann Peebles.
LS: Ayy!
AG: It is, yeah. Because you know, before, even I think prior to – yeah – prior to election, we’ve been dealing with a lot of rain. A lot of rain.
LS: Mhmm.
AG: In all it’s different iterations and just yeah. It was speaking to my state of mind. And yeah, that’s what I’ve been listening to. Feels like on repeat.
LS: Mm ha ha.
[11:18]
LS: So our episode today, I mean, talking about numbers with all the election. We are talking about critical numeracy today, um, with Atasi Das. Who needs no introduction because she helped to start this podcast. But we gonna introduce her anyway.
AG: Yeah, so, Atasi is an educator and doctoral candidate based in Harlem. She loves cooking, eating, and growing things. As an elementary educator, she has been developing a liberatory praxis. Learning and doing to change the world while creatively stacking papers all over her apartment.
LS: Oh, relatable.
(Both laugh.)
AG: Graduate student struggles. Um, Atasi’s doctoral research focuses on enacting a critical numeracy across the curriculum in schools.
LS: Alright, let’s get into it.
[12:08]
[Musical interlude.]
[12:12]
AG: Hello everyone, we’re here with Atasi Das.
LS: Yay, Atasi! Ha, she needs no introduction although, ha ha.
Atasi Das (AD): Ha ha. Hi everybody! So nice to be chatting it up with y’all.
AG: Nice to have you back. Have you on here.
AD: Yeah. How are y’all doing? I know we just talked about it ha ha, but how are y’all doing?
LS: Ha ha ha.
AG: Ha. You know, trying to get through these – the days are getting longer it seems.
AD: Ok.
AG: So yeah, trying to take care.
LS: No shorter. The days are getting shorter.
AG: Oh, shorter.
AD: I mean, daylight hours for sure.
LS: Mhmm. But like, the days. Ha ha. Are getting long.
AG: Maybe energy wise, the days are getting longer I think.
LS: Mhmm.
AG: Yeah, there you go. You right, you right. Cause now it’s getting dark at 6 o’clock. Right, or 5. What am I talking about?
AD: Almost 5, yeah, I think so. Right.
[13:08]
AG: Yeah, so, what have you been listening to?
AD: Well, I prepared myself for this question. Seeing that I’ve been asking people this question ha ha, with Toya for awhile.
LS: Oh.
AD: So, do you remember the meme that went out awhile ago, this summer. Like, you about to lose your job?
AG: Yeah.
AD: So the recent one with –
(Laughing)
AD: I’ve been watching a video with you about to lose your job with a woman who’s doing it to the Trump picture. I don’t know, I saw it yesterday and it’s just been hilarious. I’ve been cackling.
LS: Ha ha ha.
AD: But that’s one thing. That’s not like, what I’m listening to, it just happens to be what was on.
LS: You’re on tiktok, that’s what. Ha ha ha.
AD: Someone sent it, I don’t even have tiktok but yeah.
AG: Tiktok be playing some good stuff. It be catchy.
AD: It’s true though. I don’t know. I hear it’s hard to produce good videos, but folks are creative. Yeah.
LS: Mhmm.
AG: Yeah.
[14:05]
AD: But also, I’m like, been in this mode of trying to find writing music. Or, and so there’s this meditation – I’m just trying out different sounds. Like, does this make me focus? Ha ha ha.
LS: And does it?
AD: Sometimes it does. I think it depends on like, it’s like I can use the same video the next day and it doesn’t necessarily do the same thing.
LS: Mhmm.
AD: But, the past couple days, there’s this one flute meditation music that has a wooden flute. I really like that kinda sound. Uh, it kinda feels earthy or whatever but yeah. So, that kinda stuff. Tiktok and flute meditation.
(Laughing.)
LS: Is it the same person? Creating these flute meditations or are there a diversity? If someone goes to look for flute meditations, are y’all gonna have a whole swath of choices?
AD: Exactly, it’s true. Ok, so this particular track is like an hour. So it’s an instrumental and I believe it’s like one performer and it’s like an Indian Raga, last time I think I was talking about these chords. So, it’s this particular raag. Anyways, I don’t know all the ins and outs, I just know it’s an hour. And, it’s been helping me meditate. I’ll send the link, and we can post it if you want.
LS: Yay, thank you.
AG: Yes, definitely looking forward to it.
[15:23]
[Musical interlude]
[15:28]
LS: Atasi, I am excited for this conversation. So we’re gonna be talking about critical numeracy, which is, you’ve done a lot of work around this, um, both in your classroom as a teacher, as like an activist organizer, and now as a doctoral student scholar/researcher as well. So, you talk about critical numeracy as being different from mathematics. Could you break those words down for us? Like critical numeracy and mathematics?
[15:57]
AD: Sure. So, like you were saying, I’ve been coming at this for awhile. And just still always learning, but mostly I’m approaching those two words as an elementary educator. Who’s committed to justice and equity and so, as I’ve been studying and thinking about it, I see mathematics as this discipline. And like many disciplines, they have a very long history. Typically beyond this common origin story that for mathematics is like, starting from Greece, but it’s even beyond this one notion of mathematics. But I see mathematics as this silo, this highly gated knowledge place where these struggles have happened about what is math? So these negotiations and agreements and conflicts from different people, who do different kinds of work around numbers, around geometry, space, time, and so, I see mathematics as this discipline. And if you are a part of the mathematics discipline, you also have this powerful status and position in society. Is seen as truth, right.
LS: Mhmm.
[17:06]
AD: So, I am not a mathematician. I have not been trained in that discipline, but I have been an educator teaching mathematics and mathematics education has kind of been my entry point into thinking about the discipline as well as thinking about numeracy. So, math ed is concerned about what we teach, how we teach, and how do we use mathematics. So, this like math ed and numeracy is connected to like, views of schooling and learning. And then that can be varied. People have different ideas of what learning is. It can be about reproducing society as it is. Or it can be like, students are blank slates and you have to fill them up with knowledge. Or that learners are a bunch of neurons that have to have their pathways fired accordingly. Or that, you know, schooling is a mechanism to make a normal standard child. Which, you know, we and others question of like, what does that mean? Or that education and learning is something that provokes us to question the basis of anything that we think is true or correct.
So, I’ve been reading a bunch about all these different views on learning. Like, what is learning and what does it have to do with mathematics? And that kind of brought me to numeracy.
LS: Mhmm.
[18:28]
AD: Um, ha. You can always stop me cause I know that like, it’s a, ha – I’ve been reading intensely for a long time and so I hope it makes sense ha.
LS: It does no, yeah, keep going. You said it brought you to numeracy. Taking notes, taking notes.
AD: Ok, ha ha. So, there’s a lot of folks that are doing work in mathematics education that think about learning in all those different ways and so, numeracy has been my way to navigate – where do I wanna go? Am I looking at math as a discipline? Am I thinking about math ed, which is about learning and teaching and schooling? And so, I decided to excavate this idea of numeracy and there’s a lot of people who’ve done work around it who I’ve learned from who’ve set the groundwork. I’ll just name a few scholars, but there’s a couple like Keiko Yasukawa, Diana Coben, Lynn Arthur Steen – there’s all these people who talk about like, what is numeracy? What does it have to do?
But in my research, I’ve found out, it has to do with humans. All humans, who are kinda of making sense of the world, that use numbers or patterns. They have a different form of reasoning or any form of reasoning and they have been different in different historical circumstances.
So, some of the people that helped me open up my view – cause, as a math ed teacher, in 5th grade, I was always receiving curriculum and thinking like, what’s the best way to teach multiplication?
LS: Mhmm
[19:57]
AD: And what are stories around them that would help talk about and open up our viewpoint of the world? And so like, that was my preoccupation. Was like, how do I do this well for my students? And then I read Arthur Powell and Marilyn Frankenstein’s book on Ethnomathematics (1997) and they are – introduced me to a world of scholars who are like, hey mathematical thinking is not just this one narrative or this one place in the world. It’s tied to history and cultures of people, and I was like what! It’s like history. So it kinda opened up this idea of the silo, you know ‘mathematics belongs here’, to the possibilities of it belongs so many places. It’s been so many places. And so then I like, kept investigating more of – well what does that have to do with numbers and numeracy? I have read other authors like Claudia Zaslavsky, who writes Africa Counts (1999), who draws on different historical and lived conditions and places around the continent of Africa and how numbers are used and positioned. And what was interesting about her book, and what taught me about why I think about numeracy is that she pulls on not just math textbooks or mathematical literature, but she looks to literature. She pulls on Chinua Achebe’s novel, Arrow of God (1964), she talks to people and their families and like has interviews about kind of, how are numbers used? How are numbers a part of the way that you understand anything, right? So, it kinda was like what?!
So, mathematics can have philosophical implications, it can have many different kind of things. So, essentially, all these different ways that numbers and numerating are connected to political and social conditions, so like – who’s doing the numerating? Who’s counting? For what purpose? It made me kinda see numbers and numeracy as a political activity.
And so, basically, I’m kinda of not saying numeracy is separate from math, or the discipline. But it’s like a wider stance of engaging the discipline of mathematics – a discipline of mathematics, as well as learning, notions of what we think learning is, schooling, any kinds of change, social change, and then the ways that we know.
It’s just kind of like, instead of taking this one thing like, I’m gonna only work in math ed or math, it’s trying to contend with a lot of different things that are actually more connected than they are disconnected.
[22:33]
AD: And the other thing about critical numeracy that I’m investigating is that, it’s really historical. And it’s really material. It has to do with power. It has to do with, when we’re thinking of numbers, we have to also think about well, who’s the one who’s laboring? Who’s the one who’s making? Who’s the one who’s owning? Who’s benefitting from this situation? In all the different ways numbers are used and created and named.
So that was a lot, ha ha. But, that is where I am in terms of what I’m studying. So, I’m thinking of numeracy as trying to go beyond a discipline but connected to it.
LS: Mmm.
[23:12]
AG: So, as you were going beyond the discipline of mathematics and really delving into this world of critical numeracy, one thing you were definitely mentioning a lot about is like that terms of numbers and also numerating. So, within this context right, can you break that down for us, especially math that is not ahistorical discipline? You know, so.
LS: Mhmm.
AG: And how do now numbers, numerating work within that?
[23:41]
AD: Yeah. That’s a good question. I guess I would say that, thinking of what numbers are. We are talking about a concept and term that we call things. So, for example one, we call it one and it has a particular shape. It looks like a vertical stick. Or we have 5, with a symbol, has a shape and it has a term, and these are like concepts and terms and words that are taught to have a similar meaning. So we are taught about the number 5, to mean a similar distance or a similar amount, or a similar shape. And we, you know, are taught that 5 is comprised of other things. So it’s comprised of 2 + 3 or 4 +1, or it’s a property of a number, prime. So, that’s numbers. When I’m talking about numbers, I’m saying of that formation.
And then numerating is a different approach to looking at maybe the 5. It’s referring to the activity or the process that people use to say or to point to that number. So, if the number 5, are we as abolitionists, using 5 to talk about a particular thing? Or are we just Bezos using the number 5 to talk about a particular thing? Who’s the one who’s numerating, right? So, we could be talking about 5 stanzas to a poem, or 5 miles, or 5 hours. And so, numerating is that activity, of – what is it, the thing that we’re talking about, as well as the context around a number. So, for example, numerating can take into account um, we just had elections. You know- the US, uh, election..
[25:31]
(Laughing)
AD: Which I have thoughts on.
AG: Yes.
AD: Um, but you could be talking about well 5 minutes before the polls close or 5 minutes after the polls close, that 5 has a very different kind of resonance depending on what the context it’s around. So, typically when we, in math ed – when we’re teaching and learning about numbers. We do the teaching around the concept of number, but not of this wider approach of numerating which has to do with the process and the activity that surrounds the number. The process of using – making meaning with the number. Does that make sense?
[26:16]
AG: Yes.
LS: It makes - yes. It does, cause, let’s say for example, Jeff Bezos, who during the pandemic got 24 billion dollars richer – so numbers and units, we’re always taught in math and science education, that you gotta put your units on there – so 24 billion, the unit is dollars. But that isn’t enough. To understand numerating, now you have to put that into context. And like, as abolitionists, there’s a particular context that we’re looking at. If were using Jeff Bezos as an example, can you just talk about how numerating shapes relationships in our society or helps us better understand relationships in our society?
[26:55]
AD: Yeah. I think that’s actually a really good example to try to build off of. So, the 24 billion isn’t a number that just exists. It has consequences of people who produce things, who made the things, people who delivered the things, people who consume the things. And all these different processes that were extracted or exploited for 24 billion dollars, to be siphoned. So, I wouldn’t even say that part of how I understand that 24 billion has to do with the context of understanding exploitation.
[27:38]
LS: Mhmm.
AD: And so it’s not apparent if you were just to look at that 24 billion. I saw it on the Guardian and we could interpret that 24 billion differently. And so, right now, you and I, the three of us – are engaging in a conversation to pull that apart. And that’s kinda of an aspect that could be a critical numeracy thing. Like, well what is made up of that 24 billion. I could say, 10 billion and 14 billion – but really, it’s so much exploitation of all the Amazon workers, globally, who were also trying to coordinate and unionize and weren’t getting sick pay. You know, all these different things – that comprises in that 24 billion. So that 24 billion is actually just a signal for a larger and more destructive process.
And you can’t like, break up 24 million into like, this much exploited and this much, cause it’s a historical and a social dynamic thing, but it is. It’s absurd.
LS: Mhmm.
[28:42]
LS: I can’t even – I don’t even know what that means…Like, I…
AD: Yeah!
LS: I can’t fathom how much that is.
AG: So that’s why I was gonna ask next – so, can we – let’s try to contextualize this. Because sometimes when you hear billions, it’s like, ok. One billion is one thing, but when you talk about – once we get into the billion arena, what is that and how do we see that? How do we make that um, a context?
[29:07]
AD: Context – no yeah, that’s - I hope that we can think together on this. Because – ok, so, I’ve done an activity with 5th graders where we try to look at a relationship between one and how big one looks versus one million. And, we use these cubes. And then the difference between 1 million, which ends up being – you know – being a lot bigger than one, to a billion. Which is, it’s like mind boggling. Cause you’re like wait, oh, it’s just gonna go up by this much, but it’s huge. And so, just that quantity and looking at the number relationship makes us think about all these connections to social relationships of like, what does that mean for my rent? Dude, that could have paid everybody’s rent! Or, that could be healthcare for everyone. You know. So, I don’t know – what kind of relationships do you think of when you’re – think of a huge number like that?
[30:06]
AG: To understand it, on that level sometimes, we’ll look up entire countries’ GDPs. Because, it’s like this one person, and this is used to run an entire country. And this is one person who has amassed this wealth, in a number of – I don’t even know - months.
AD: Months.
AG: This is not even the totality of their wealth. They have more. And even then, I still have – grasping – it’s astronomical.
AD: It almost seems like not possible, right.
AG: Yeah.
LS: Right.
(Ha)
LS: I –
AD: Criminal. Sorry.
LS: Ha ha. That part – criminal. Cause I’m thinking about like, the stimulus. Right now, the stimulus check.
AG: Mhmm.
LS: So, this man made 24 billion dollars at a time when people were struggling and in the grand scheme of things of what people needed to survive during that pandemic, $1200 dollars is nothing. However in the grand scheme of my life and my relationship with money, I was like, that $1200 is going to do, like – thank you. Everybody is like, what am I gonna do with this? You can pass it over here then please.
AD: Ha ha ha.
LS: And just like, if you have a family, like you have rent, you gotta feed your kids, you gotta do all this stuff, $1200 was not going to take you far as someone with a family. I mean, it’s not going far in New York for rent, period. It does not cover my rent. And I just, I can’t understand there are people who, didn’t have – like, that’s all they have was that $1200 and yet there’s a man who’s making billions off of these very same people.
[31:46]
AG: Mm.
LS: Like, it doesn’t, and I’m including myself in that. Like, who he’s making money off of, and I just – it just like, I can’t. I literally cannot. I can’t – understand.
AG: Mm.
AD: And, and it’s funny cause, I would even say he’s not making it, he’s taking it. I kind of think it strums this cord of the capitalist, like, his labor is making that.
LS: Mhmm.
AD: No dude! That is everyone else’s work! That shit is taken – I’m sorry, I cursed –
AG: No no, go ahead.
AD: …is taken! But I think it’s to really fathom because we would be on fire, furious, which we probably should be if we’re not already. Ha.
[32:32]
AG: I feel like you just hit something right there about how numbers and numerating shape our relationships in our society, especially when you think about capitalism and how it’s operating. I like how you said taken. Because, what does it mean to profit and really, to even calculate this even by labor – can someone even achieve this type of wealth by their own personal labor?
AD: Mhmm.
AG: Without exploitation, really?
AD: Mhmm.
[33:05]
LS: You used the word, excavate when you were talking about – I forget, what exactly – all I wrote down was excavate, I didn’t say –
(Ha ha ha.)
LS: Ha ha, but you were saying, you were using it in terms of numerating. Like there’s an excavation that takes place cause you have to – like, there’s a historical aspect to it and you have to give it context. And I feel like that’s what we’re doing and I think that verb is incredibly important because we can put a number out there but unless we talk about land and labor and exploitation, having to excavate all the things that surround that dollar amount, we don’t really get at everything that allows one person to have that.
[33:40]
AD: Mhmm.
LS: The other thing I’m thinking about, ugh, y’all, I’m gonna take us to the election, I’m so sorry. Ha ha ha.
AD: No, what.
AG: Go ahead, no, please do.
LS: Thinking about how like, numbers and numerating shapes relationships in society, I’m just thinking about the electoral college and the voting and how these numbers that these two white men had to get in order to win the presidency and just the relationships that that created.
So, ok yes, Trump is trash. But also, Joe Biden is less than mediocre.
(Ha ha)
And, the condition that this created with this is that, so much work, time, and energy, organizing went into sort of trying to create an environment that allows a less than mediocre white man to win the presidency of the United States. So, I don’t know if I have a question. Ha ha.
AD: No, I -
LS: It just, brought that up for me. Just like, this is a relationship that has been created because of these particular numbers. And if we do some numerating around this, what do we see or find.
AG: Mm.
AD: Yeah. I hear you. So much on that. I was thinking about this a lot yesterday. Of the energy on the street when I heard, you know, cheers and elation of all the different people. It was palpable. But at the same time, the pressure that was building since this summer, all the different protests, and the pandemic, all these different things that are kinda coalescing and kind of punctuated to this one very – like you’re saying, with these numbers that then get you these less than mediocre like, that’s not it. It’s not over. We are just – we can’t, we have to keep that energy moving.
LS: Mhmm.
AD: I was kinda shocked. Of how much of a reaction it was. In this context, knowing that it is less than mediocre outcome and we have to keep pushing and this has to be not it. I have been thinking about that too, as a starting point, ending point. And like, the power that that number has. You were trying to get to 270, and then what. Where like all that energy and organizing has a place that it can rest? No. Do you know what I’m saying? I don’t know what I’m saying either ha ha ha ha.
LS: No.
AG: No, definitely. No, yes – thank – I think – every time we go through an election year or whatever, and even the election process itself. These numbers for me really sit, to a point where these questions around ok, even our system of governance, right? We have the electoral college and we supposedly are the representative democracy, right. What these numbers mean in terms of what laws or bills are passed on? Even how we value the vote, right. Does it make sense? Does it make sense that a senator, let’s say in California, represents I don’t know how many millions of vote. Vote counts the same as someone from Wyoming, who’s representing…
LS: Mhmm.
AG: We look at that and then we look at then, ok, the number of seats in the Senate, the number of seats in the House and then this whole thing around if you don’t have the seats in the majority in the House or the Senate, then you can’t have certain. You really don’t have your bills passed. This is something that, a critique or the Obama administration, is that when he did have the House and the Senate, he wasn’t able to push forward with his promise on healthcare as what he stated – he ran on, because they didn’t, they eventually lost that majority trying to reach to the other side of the aisle. And that whole rhetoric around reaching to the other side and helping people to, to get on the same line, the same vote.
But this number around 270, these numbers in the House, and what they mean around representing peoples’ voices and needs is just, I mean, one of my first questions is how did we even get to these numbers to begin with? To decide this is what constitute the majority, and this is what we’ll push on that will go on to make the laws of the land.
[37:40]
AD: Wow, that was a really powerful. I – you made me think like, that question of how we value the vote, is made as a proxy for how we value the human. Which is not true.
LS: Mmm.
AD: It’s not equate-able. As we can see in lived experience.
LS: Mmm.
AG: Yup.
AD: But, it is a tactic because, hell no, I wouldn’t want Trump in office. Like, I don’t – you know like…
LS: Right, exactly.
[38:11]
AG: Now, I’m thinking about numerating within the realm of a representative democracy that the US claims –
LS: Says it has.
AG: Yes.
LS: Ha ha ha.
AG: Yes. Because it seems like, in other countries, there are multiple parties.
LS: It’s actually that, we have more than two parties, it’s just that who gets the attention, it’s just the Republicans and the Democrats. That’s why, so in 2016 –
AD: Ha ha ha.
LS: When Hillary lost and people were like, all the people that wrote in Green Party, if y’all would have voted Democrat, Hillary would have won. It’s like, well, if the people who voted for Trump would have voted for Hillary, Hillary would have won.
AG: Ha ha.
AD: Mmm.
LS: So like, what, like, make this logic make sense. I feel like this thing is bringing up so much for me that I can’t actually quite articulate yet. But, I got so many text messages from the NAACP. Ha ha. About, voting. First of all, how’d y’all get my number? Because –
AD: Ha ha ha.
LS: I don’t give my number out. But like, two, where are y’all? Y’all have all these people’s numbers but this is the only time you’re texting them. So you could be texting people to be like, are you eating? Are you able to pay this? The NAACP just reaching out to see how y’all doing? But no, the only time that I’m hearing from you is when you want me to put my weight behind a less than mediocre white man. How does that serve you?
AG: Mm.
LS: You know.
[39:30]
AD: Wow. Yeah.
AG: People who voted – right, they said that Biden. No president has ever won this many votes. Which was what, 72, 73 mil. What’s the population of the US? We are what, 300 and something?
AD: Thirty?
AG: 30 mil? And so you have maybe around 140 million people who voted. Not even half of the total population right. Sometimes in this world that talks about data driven decisions or whatever whatever, it’s another indicator that these systems continuously do not serve many, but they are still systems we uphold.
[40:13]
AD: I mean, and the question I think, also, is like, in what way do abolitionists, or others organize themselves? In my research, a part of me reading was like, am I saying that there’s no use for numbers? Ah. I don’t think so. I don’t stand on that, because I feel like, you have to be able to know what the number is doing and what is surrounding the creating of these numbers or what you’re pointing to. And also, coordinating it. Cause we have to be organized. Um, thinking of, Toya, talking about, why aren’t you reaching out to see how I’m doing? Am I healthy? Am I ok? Or like, in collective. There are things we can do with that information, so I feel like there could be a way of understanding critical numeracy or don’t use numbers, because of the way data driven systems are wresting control away. But they don’t need to own it. I mean, it doesn’t need to be like that.
LS: Mhmm. Yeah. You just said something that made me think of, in New York City here, because of Kalief Browder, when they were doing the whole Raise the Age campaign. Um, from, they wanted to raise it from 16 to 18, but it was like, but that doesn’t change the prison system.
AG & AD: Mmm.
LS: Because now this person can still go to jail, just at 18, everything that can happen to him when they’re 16 can now still just happen when they’re 18. So, I don’t know what you said, but it’s making me think like, how knowing exactly what we’re fighting for is just as important because I think when – if we’re as abolitionists, we’re also getting caught up on number, but it might be stopping there. Or, because we’re like, because this is how numbers normally get used, so we’re gonna use numbers in this way, but not - it’s not helping us get to where we want to be because like you said, we get stuck or stop there.
[41:59]
AG: I feel a big part I’m taking away from this is that numbers are not without context. And this whole notion of a, kind of a neutrality behind this discipline is really – it’s a lie.
AD: Mhmm. I know that there are mathematicians who are trying to make sure that the power relations are highlighted. There was a recent blog post by the American Mathematical, in the mathematical society, not by the society, by a collective called the Just Mathematics Collective. Powerful statement for abolition, against incarceration, about a – you know, re-iterating this boycott for mathematicians to not engage in creating, developing algorithms that police departments and other surveillance apparatus of the state use to suppress people, to oppress people. And so, there are people within this, you know, highly gated discipline that are also trying to do that work too.
[43:01]
LS: So these are all like, like even in this conversation, like you said this thing and it’s making me think about a thing and I can’t quite articulate it. Sometimes abstract but also not abstract cause we can also definitely place all these things onto examples and ways that people are doing the work like you just said. But you’ve also done this in your classroom with elementary school students. You have to teach math but bringing in critical numeracy. So, for the educators out there, whether you’re at K-12 or you’re undergrad or grad, can you just talk to us about how you’ve done this in the classroom.
[43:34]
AD: Yeah. I mean, it’s definitely a work in progress. I guess part of my approach of thinking of math ed, is it’s not only within math that this happens but we see this as a part of all aspects of social life. And so we might have a unit, or have some lessons around the magnitude of a number, and at the same time, be investigating other things that could be numerated. To kind of make a tangible thing about food, clothing, shelter, health related stuff. So what we have done is kind of looked at food production, you know, my students have planted things and tried to grow it and think about well, if we are able to grow this food, or visit other places to see how things are grown, and if food can be produced in this way and feed this many people, or rent – you know, for fifth graders, they think about if they’re in apartments or places that they rent or if their parents are not. And so like, putting that in relationship to this conversation that’s more abstracted.
And so, the other way that I’ve kind of tried to engage a critical numeracy is through role play. One particular curriculum is called “Power in Our Hands”, and there is this role play called the Organic Good Machine, and essentially it’s this role play where you are trying to talk about history as being created by ordinary people. And, we make change as we figure out what change we wanna make. And also, understand what’s happening. So there’s a factory situation, where some students are workers, some students are unemployed, as the educator, I tell them what the economy is. And so, they’re you know making wages or getting tax benefits or welfare benefits, receiving them. And then the educator as an owner is kind of controlling the economy and also accumulating profit from all that’s produced. And so, students experience it and see it and kind of then make decisions of how they want to change it. And it’s always been really dynamic. I’ve done this role play a number of times in third grade classrooms, fifth grade classroom, graduate students, undergrads. And it’s fascinating who decides that this is, it’s not ok. It’s usually the youngest members of society that are like, no way, no! Ha.
LS: Ha ha ha.
AD: They’re ready to strike within minutes. Where graduate students take a long time. Um, but anyways. Things like that then bring in the question of the context around number. Cause we look at the numbers afterwards and then think about what happened. The process that produced some of those numbers. So yeah, it’s things like that. Like many educators, I’m like a remixer of like, other people’s works ha. And so, there are plenty of things that people created and I’m sure people are creating right now.
[46:28]
LS: Yeah I was, I forget what I was co-facilitating, but you came in as a guest in one of the sessions to do this with the teachers. In addition to all these concepts of worker, producer, wages, all this, they were also learning these things that they would need to learn to take their tests.
AG & AD: Mmm.
LS: There’s an agenda to like, ha ha, turn them all in to communists as the conservatives say. But like, really embedding this other knowledge that would otherwise be left out of their curriculum and to what you as a teacher had to teach.
[47:01]
AD: Yeah, I mean the facility of being able to do all those algorithms, of knowing how to add and subtract with more confidence. You know, which is gonna be tested is definitely part of that process, you know. To know what’s happening, you have to be able to you know, then calculate what’s going on.
LS: Mhmm.
AD: Yeah.
[47:19]
AG: What you’ve modeled, do you find by having more of this tool – to be more active, to the learning that’s taking place? Maybe shape their relationship to the subject?
AD: Absolutely. Part of what I’ve noticed and also watched other great educators who are interested in promoting, kind of like, you are a mathematician. I’m not teaching you to be a mathematician, you already are - is this active kind of aspect of the learning, of creating, you know. A lot of times, some of my best learning moments with this notion of math talk, where you know, everybody’s kinda sharing their process, and also why it works, and so I’m constantly learning from other people’s processes. Like some people do the thing where they get, they take a number and they put it to the closest ten and then they add, or you know – I always watched my parents do math, my mom do math in her head. You know, obviously she would have, she would be counting, and like, I didn’t understand her process. And so she had to explain it to me and so this is like a constant, active role and if it’s positioned in a way that everybody has a grasping point to like, oh, you can take part in this, then absolutely, it does shape their relationship and I think, you know, mathematics is such a highly gated discipline. Its also seen as powerful and then it rejects. Its seen as one that rejects one. So people are like, I am not a math person, or I am a math person. Um, and that really keeps people from even trusting that they can and that they are already active participants and so if you just give a little entry point and maybe that’s tools of resistance. In the organic goodie machine situation, like they’re making goodies and some people decide to come take a bunch of the goodies that I’ve hoarded. You know, they’re liberating those. And that is not necessarily a math process, but it is. Because that’s their entry point. They see things being stolen. They see that their labor is being taken. And so that decision of, no, this is for all of us, is a mathematical process. And, then we stop together, and then maybe as a group, put symbols around it, make a different sense of it. And so now, if you hadn’t put those symbols in the very get go, you’ve at least had some interaction with this process.
So definitely, it shapes the relationship. They see it as bigger than this scary thing that’s made them feel bad.
[49:56]
LS & AG: Mmm.
AD: And it’s hard. I mean, I have – I still, I’m like, don’t tell me to do this math. Don’t give me the bill, ha. Like, ha, even though I can, but we can do it in group or whatever. But you know.
(Laughing.)
LS: Yes, um, I’m like looking through all the notes that I jotted down when we were – when you’ve been talking, Atasi. And I think I asked them all.
AD: Cool. I have a poem I wanted to –
AG: Yes.
AD: Not that I wrote, ok. Let me just step back. I didn’t write this poem, but I wanted to share.
LS: I was about to be so excited.
AD: Oh god, no. I don’t know. This is better, I think.
AG: No, go on!
AD: Ha. Uh, you may know this activist, or if you don’t you should, Claudia Jones, who is a political activist from Trinidad and Tobago, has done a lot of work. Part of the US Communist party for awhile, and this is, you know, the poem from the 50s, so I wanted to read her poetry as, hopefully inspiration for all of our future critical numeracy efforts. It’s called “For Consuela – Anti-Fascista”:
It seems I knew you long before our common ties—of conscious choice
Threw under single skies, those like us
Who, fused by our mold
Became their targets, as of old
I knew you in Jarama’s hills
Through men and women drilled
In majesty, whose dignity
Rejected shirts and skirts of dimity.
I heard you in Guernica’s songs
Proud melodies that burst from tongues
As yet unknown to me—full thronged
With Liberty.
Anti . . . Anti-Fascistas!
That was your name
I sang your fame
Long fore my witness of your bane of pain
I saw you in the passion-flower
In roses full of flame
Pure valley lily, whose bower
Marks resemblance to your name.
Oh wondrous Spanish sister
Long-locked from all your care
Listen—while I tell you what you strain to hear
And beckon all from far and near.
We swear that we will never rest
Until they hear not plea
But sainted sacrifice to set
A small proud nation free
[*This last stanza below not read in the podcast, but is last stanza of the poem.]
[O anti-fascist sister—you whose eye turn to stars still
I’ve learned your wondrous secret—source of spirit and of will
I’ve learned that what sustains your heart—mind and peace of soul
Is knowledge that their justice—can never reach its goal.]
[52:32]
(Clapping.)
LS: Yay! Claudia Jones, she is just, we think about people we can hold up, it’s her. So, Left of Karl Marx (2008), is a book about her, as well as Beyond Containment (2011), I think both written by Carol Boyce Davies.
AD: Mmm.
LS: But Atasi, do you wanna share with us why you chose that poem?
AD: Yeah, I was thinking of our discussion of what these numbers with the election mean. I’m thinking of our understanding and what we approach within all the varying interests people have. And, some of the unities and divisions that we need to either find links between or oppose. You know, that first line of talking about the common ties of conscious choice, and this plea. I feel like, you know, we’re at this moment where we need to find one another and make clear of our hopes in a different world with a lot of fervor. And that shouldn’t stop, so. Yeah, that’s why I went to this poem. And looked for her voice.
LS: Thank you.
[53:41]
AG: Yes, thank you for sharing that.
LS: Any final thoughts?
AD: Yeah, I don’t have any thoughts, I just wanna open it up. Everybody get in touch with Abolition Science, tell them what you think, ha ha ha um. Um, yeah, no other thoughts really.
[54:00]
LS: Yeah, we would love to know what you think always, but specifically about this. Atasi how can folks get in touch with you? And in addition to that, do you have any projects or things coming up that folks could tap into or tune into?
AD: I am a recent twitter person, entering the twitter world. So you can find me there @_atasi_das. So yeah, I’m posting there some things. I’m working with the TLC on some Abolition and Teaching kind of ideas. I hope to reach out to many people for help, cause it’s always collective work. Other than that, yeah, twitter is a great place to connect. Toya, you and I with two other colleagues have an article that’s out recently. But other than that, no, nothing else. Working on my dissertation still.
LS: Ha ha.
AD: And life still.
[54:59]
LS: Um, you mentioned the TLC, could you explain to the listeners what that is?
AD: Sure. It is called the Teaching and Learning Center, which is a part of the Graduate Center at CUNY. And essentially, it’s an office that does programming and workshops for different aspects of teaching courses and thinking about ed tech, or thinking about trauma informed pedagogy to how to, you know, think about student engagement in this time, in distance learning. So, lots of different types of things that come out of the TLC. Um, and it’s mostly online. Well, nobody’s in person doing anything ha – everything’s online! But yeah, we look at processes of teaching and learning in undergraduate education.
[55:45]
LS: Great, thank you.
AG: Yes.
AD: Cool, I really appreciate the conversation and the opportunity to try to think about this and I’m so happy that uh, we could all do some critical numeracy together. Yeah, I really appreciate it.
LS: Yeah, same. Ha ha. Although I’m just like, I don’t know if I was making any sense when I was talking so we’ll see how…ha ha ha. Cause you were saying things like, oh it’s bringing things up but I can’t quite say what it’s bringing up, but here are some like, thoughts. So yeah, this was powerful, thank you.
[56:22]
[♫Musical interlude – Flute meditation music.]
[56:48]
LS: So you just heard a clip of Indian flute meditation music. There is not actually an artist that we can give this to. Uh, so what did that, Derin, bring up for you?
AG: It definitely stilled my mind, you know, um, given with everything that’s going on, pft, on a daily, especially with this pandemic. What came up for you?
LS: Yeah, I liked it. We’ve talked about this, I think with the Tiny Tech Zines episode, just how I’m like very sensitive to certain sounds. And not just like, external sounds, but sometimes I can just like feel the music in my body.
AG: Mm. Mhmm.
LS: And so when the flute would hold the note, then there were times when it was like more wavy, so it was more like fluctuating or undulating, I was feeling it ha ha in my stomach. I could not write to this music but I could sort of just lie down, put some candles on and listen to it and just relax. And just, do some intentional resting to it.
AG: Mmm.
LS: Atasi mentioned the word raga when she described this music, and so I’m looking it up right now, we’re on this website SwarGonga, it says raga [also spelled raag, or raaga] is the backbone of Indian classical music. The word raga comes from the Sanskrit word ranj, which means to delight, make happy, or satisfy, however, that’s not the only mood that it can evoke, and so that, that was just peaceful. What we listened to. Oh, there are specific notes within a raga that can be re-ordered and improvised by the musician, but it sounds like within each raga, you only stay within those notes and you just do different things with them.
[58:29]
AG: Oh, it definitely was an experience. A listening experience. Yeah, now that everything is so still, I’m just also feeling very grateful for the conversation we just had with Atasi.
LS: Same. It just brought up a lot that I couldn’t quite voice holistically, but yeah. So we hope that you also enjoyed the conversation that we just had with Atasi.
[Music begins in background.]
AG: Yes, and also, as the request was put out there earlier, let us know what you think.
LS: Mhmm.
AG: Some of your thoughts about this.
LS: Yeah, we would love to hear from you!
AG: Cause, actually there’s no because – just, it’d be nice.
LS: Ha ha ha.
AG: Ha ha ha.
LS: Alright, that’s our episode y’all, so we will see y’all next time.
AG: See you, stay safe. And if possible, stay home.
LS: Ha ha ha.
AG: Bye!
[59:30]
LS: Check out our website, AbolitionScience.org, where you can find transcripts of each episode and links to many of the resources that we mentioned.
AG: You can also follow us on Twitter, @abolition_sci and on Instagram @AbolitionScience.
[Music Stops♫]
[59:46]
Mentions & Resources:
Songs Mentioned by Aderinsola Gilbert:
Ann Peebles, “I Can’t Stand the Rain” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmpIGKlOm44&list=OLAK5uy_nu5ovPIllsNwJ3GVe_SsYUdJNA2D_6nUk&index=1
Songs Mentioned by LaToya Strong:
H.E.R., “Damage” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAFAfhod9TU
Songs (& TikTok) Mentioned by Atasi Das:
1 Hour Indian Flute Meditation (Raga) on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr8GBzTsWqM
People Atasi Das Mentioned:
Dr. Keiko Yasukawa : https://profiles.uts.edu.au/keiko.yasukawa
Dr. Diana Coben: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/diana-coben
Dr. Lynn Arther Steen: https://www.maa.org/about-maa/governance/maa-presidents/lynn-arthur-steen-1985-1986-maa-president
Claudia Jones – Please see two books mentioned below*.
Orgs and Collectives Atasi Das Mentioned:
Just Mathematics Collective: https://www.justmathematicscollective.net/
Statement referenced by Atasi Das by Just Mathematics Collective from AMS Site as a Guest Blog Post: https://blogs.ams.org/inclusionexclusion/2020/10/21/jmc-openletter/
Books Atasi Das Mentioned:
Ethnomathematics: Challenging Eurocentrism in Mathematics Education (1997) Edited by Arthur Powell and Marilyn Frankenstein: https://books.google.com/books/about/Ethnomathematics.html?id=ks3JNA8BhnAC
Africa Counts: Numbers and Patters In African Culture (Third Ed) (1999) by Claudia Zaslavsky: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Africa_Counts/2zanfxcor8UC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=claudia+zaslavsky+africa+counts&printsec=frontcover
Arrow of God (1964), by Chinua Achebe : https://www.google.com/books/edition/Arrow_of_God/cGjvAGZkomUChl=en&gbpv=1&dq=arrow+of+god+Chinua+Achebe&printsec=frontcover
The Power in Our Hands: A Curriculum on the History of Work and Workers in the United States (1988), by Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond
Role Play Mentioned: “Organic Goodie Machine” - https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/organic-goodie-simulation/
Books LaToya Strong Mentioned:
Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment (2011), edited by Carole Boyce Davies
Poem Atasi Das Referenced: p.189-190, “For Consuela – Antifascista” (1955) : https://caroleboycedavies.com/claudia-jones-beyond-containment/
Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (2008) by Carol Boyce Davies ; https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/1237/Left-of-Karl-MarxThe-Political-Life-of-Black
