Brooklyn Center Community Schools issued the following announcement on March 14.
Minnesota math standards are currently being reviewed by a committee of professionals from around the state. Brooklyn Center Community Schools is represented on this committee and is a leading voice in bringing equity to state math standards.
According to the Minnesota Department of Education statute, every ten years statewide math curriculum must be reviewed and revised. “We imagine our work will last for the next fifteen to twenty years [in classrooms across Minnesota]... so this work is enormous,” said Sizi Goyah, BC math teacher and one of three co-chairs of the review committee.
One of the main areas of focus in this work is teaching equity in all math classrooms through state mandated curriculum.
“We are asking what it means to have an anti-racist math curriculum and how can we push equity in mathematics and how can we start to push for students to rediscover their mathematical ancestry,” said Goyah.
“How can a Black student in a math classroom identify that their ancestors have been doing math before? How can students understand that the ancient Mayans and Aztecs have been doing math before, and that the Native Americans have contributed enormously to mathematical knowledge? We want to put these ideas into the curriculum so it’s not just something we talk about in passing but it is actually being taught deliberately.”
Another area of focus for this committee is bringing standardized financial mathematics requirements to the state curriculum. In recent years due to budget constraints, many small districts across the state had to cut elective courses that taught financial mathematics and literacy so students do not have access to learn about things like interest rates, taxes, balancing a checkbook, how to run a business, etc.
“This year we are pushing to have financial mathematics be a part of the required mathematics curriculum, regardless of budgetary constraints. Then small school districts, like Brooklyn Center, will be able to teach all students about real-life mathematical situations,” remarked Goyah.
The committee is also focusing on rewriting curriculum to propose two additional standards. Rather than breaking up curriculum by grade levels (K- Grade 2, Grades 3-5, Grades 9-11), core concepts would be taught consistently throughout students’ educational experiences, and computational mathematics and computer science would be incorporated into the math classroom.
“It is not often that the population of students that we represent are represented at the table where these decisions are made,” said Goyah.
“I’m really excited about this work and not just being at the table but being a co-chair leading the work at the table. Everything I bring to the table is brought with Brooklyn Center students and families in mind because I know that whatever I sign my name on at the end of the day will affect my children too.”
Once the Minnesota State Legislature approves this curriculum, The Minnesota Department of Education will integrate training for district curriculum departments. This process will take between four and five years before teachers will begin using this curriculum.
Goyah has been teaching mathematics at Brooklyn Center Community Schools since 2012. His classes include Algebra 2 (Grades 11-12), pre-calculus, and statistics. He is also a Math Department lead and chair member, the Brooklyn Center Middle & High School union representative, and was recently elected as the Region 6 Director on the board of the Minnesota Council for the Teachers of Mathematics.
“In the Brooklyn Center Math Department, we are trying to live the district mission. We want to ensure that every student comes to the classroom and immediately feels like they belong,” said Goyah. “The ambitious mission sentence on the district website is not just there to be there, it is there because our teachers and departments are working to ensure our content areas reflect the mission and vision of the district.”
Original source can be found here.
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