Hawaiian Mathematics?

[Gauracandra]

Multi-colored Math, Sensitive Science

Friday, November 22, 2002

By Joanne Jacobs

 

Native Hawaiian students will be taught Hawaiian-style science, technology, engineering and mathematics, thanks to a National Science Foundation grant to the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

 

Advanced classes would include rain forest restoration, volcano studies and "ethnomathematics," which would look at the math of Hawaiian navigation, symmetries in Hawaiian textiles and spatial relationships in fish nets and knots, for example.

 

Color-coding the curriculum is patronizing and stupid, writes Marc Miyake on Amritas. Most native Hawaiians aren't primitives in paradise: They're more into downloading MP3s than casting their nets into the sea. TV beats taro.

 

There’s no harm in using island examples to teach real science and math: That guy rowing against the current -- a staple of my math education -- can be a native paddling her outrigger against the tide. That’s math. But it’s not ethnomath. When the ethno comes in, the rigor goes out.

 

In theory, native Hawaiians’ self-esteem will be boosted by hula-ized curriculum. In practice, hula-izing the curriculum implies that natives can’t learn like other students. As Miyake notes, students of Asian descent learn without abacus training. Dutch-Americans don’t need dike and windmill problems, nor do Italian-Americans do math with Roman numerals.

 

Typically, ethno-curriculum defines science as white, and therefore cold, while the warm-hearted natives have... spiritual stuff. It's hard to think of anything more racist. Europeans (and, mysteriously, Asians) get science, math, technology and engineering. Hawaiians get poi.

 

NSF also is funding research on teaching science to Native Americans via culturally sensitive "science stories."

 

There were five or six Native American students in my freshman dorm. Those who'd gone to Bureau of Indian Affairs schools had received fourth-rate educations. An Arizona boy wanted to major in geology or petroleum engineering, but his school hadn't offered lab science or college-prep math. A girl from the Northwest told me girls did "domestic science" (cleaning the boarding school) while boys did "environmental science" (maintaining the grounds). No other science was offered. These students didn't need stories about the rain god or story problems featuring Brave Elk and Spirit Woman. They needed to be taught biology, chemistry and physics, algebra, geometry, trig and calculus.

 

Human beings with gray, wrinkly brains thought up science and math. Humans with gray, wrinkly brains can learn -- if they're taught.

[Guest guest]

their just trying to get the kids interested in learning.

 

I lived in hawaii, The native hawaiians are the worst students , all ready.

 

they pay little to no attention to school, just surfin,

gettin high, and their cars.

 

This ethnocentric approach is trying to give an incentive

to these kids using their ancestry as a tool.

 

I think it's a good thing.

[theist]

you can try dis n dat but it justs all humbug in the end. Can bring the horse to watta brah, but can't make em' drink yeah, li dat.

 

Surf mo fun anyway.

[Guest guest]

Kinda reminds me of the goofs who want to breed the pidgin out of the locals.

 

Why say a paragraph when "we go store." will suffice.