trust all is well. i am very heartened by the response to my first few posts on this matter. i will endeavor to answer the questions as best as i can. here is a sampling:

• We gotta answer the question of WHY? Why do you need to know Math..well? What does that mean to our future earnings, our quality of life, the life of our children…damm! I could go on and on…
• How does math literacy hold the key to the enfranchisement of communities?
• The state of affairs in the African American community in regards to higher education is in shambles… there needs to be grand sweeping changes in the ways in which we teach our children, so they can teach future generations to no longer be serfs in the digital age. How do we do this?
• How do we integrate our culture and our diversity into the middle grades curriculum in content areas such as: science, technology, and math.
• How do we develop effective teachers who are able to deal with students who have learning styles and experiences that are outside of the “mainstream.” ?
• How do we gather folk with more than content expertise: i.e., folk with personal and intimate experience of “difference” and put this into the service of effective pedagogy?
• How do we get to our boys who are stuck on C?

as i read these responses i realized that in order to answer the question as to why math literacy is important we needed to first establish: what is literacy? and in particular, what is math literacy?

“Mathematical literacy is an individual’s capacity to identify and understand the role that mathematics plays in the world, to make well-founded judgements and to use and engage with mathematics in ways that meet the needs of that individual’s life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen.”

what does this mean on flatbush & nostrand avenues?

before we answer this question. let’s take a look at the talk by “Ethno-mathematician” Ron Eglash. it’s about fifteen minutes. it is the deep history which i hope will guide the unfolding of this discussion. in it are already the answers to a number of the questions posed. Eglash is the author of African Fractals, a book that examines the fractal patterns underpinning architecture, art and design in many parts of Africa. by looking at aerial-view photos — and then following up with detailed research on the ground — Eglash discovered that many african villages are purposely laid out to form perfect fractals, with self-similar shapes repeated in the rooms of the house, and the house itself, and the clusters of houses in the village, in mathematically predictable patterns.

at root: “Being literate in math is vital to participating in life. It’s hugely the gatekeeper to many careers. If you can’t do well in an algebra class in the ninth grade, you’re shut out of college.” – Deborah Lowenberg Ball, dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Education. we will explore what this literacy consists of in a more detailed manner in our next installment. enjoy the talk and also check out the algebra project site.