Author: joshwilkerson

Theological Implications of the SAT

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By Megan Stookey

Every senior at my school has to deliver and defend a senior thesis at the end of the year. One of my students undertook the task of proposing changes to the SAT and ACT in order to more properly assess a student’s college-readiness. One of the phases of the thesis process was explaining the biblical/theological implications of their topic. I’ll be giving a talk on math assessments from a Christian perspective in a few days, so I thought it would be appropriate to share (with permission of course) Megan’s work below.

The SAT’s purpose is to measure developed reasoning, specific mental gift of each student; but who is the College Board to decide which gift or talent is more beneficial to college success? God distributes his gifts differently within his plan for humanity; therefore no gift may be considered more beneficial than another. The SAT, however, has been designed to discriminate between gifts by negating such talents as creativity, rhetoric, language, and organization; it merely focuses on the gift it calls “developed reasoning”. 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 states “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work”. In the Lord’s eyes all of his gifts are necessary for the success of his kingdom, however, in our culture that has grown increasingly more secular, certain gifts have been credited to benefit society more than others.

This secular perspective influenced the institution of the SAT, which as previously stated, focuses on measuring the gift of reasoning. The problem with this design is that it highlights a single gift that constitutes only a portion of the population, and fails to acknowledge other gifts that are equally beneficial to society. If everyone did well on the SAT and had reasoning skills but no other gifts modern society could not function. A successful society is a diverse society, that is the way God intended it. He distributed different gifts because they are together, all necessary for the furthering of the kingdom of heaven; the kingdom needs prophets, and teachers, and miracle workers, and organizers without which the goodness of the Lord would be barred from certain sections of society. Romans 12:3-11 states, “For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.” God does not discriminate between the arms and the legs of his body, he created them each to serve a specific function in his kingdom. As a society we need the people the SAT deem will be less successful because they do not think the same way. For example, without creative people where would art come from? Where would progress come from? Each member of the body forms a specific function, to choose a specific portion to value above the others inhibits the whole body from success.

The SAT needs to account for more than one mental gift; it needs to alter in such a way that it measures a wide range of gifts. Even if one or two are not accounted for at least a more diverse group of students will be considered successful. The idea that a test can be made to measure a cognitive skill that supposedly everyone should develop, is blind to the vast number of different gifted people that allow society to progress. It not only puts down those who do not “measure up”, but it limits the opportunities of people who are necessary for society to function and have been marked to probably be unsuccessful. God does not discriminate between his children; he loves them all no matter if they are a prophet, a servant, a teacher, or an organizer. We are all loved equally, and the SAT needs to take the wide range of God given gifts into account if it wants to produce not only a successful society, but a functional society.

Uri Treisman’s “Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize” (NCTM 2013)

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The following speech was given by Uri Treisman, professor of mathematics and director of the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin. This was the Iris M. Carl Equity Address given on April 19, 2013 at the NCTM Annual Conference in Denver.  Here is the summary from Treisman:

There are two factors that shape inequality in this country and educational achievement inequality. The big one is poverty. But a really big one is opportunity to learn. As citizens, we need to work on poverty and income inequality or our democracy is threatened. As mathematics educators … we need to work on opportunity to learn. It cannot be that the accident of where a child lives or the particulars of their birth determine their mathematics education.

This was an excellent message on where precisely the educational system in this country is working, and where it is failing. Treisman gives a detailed address of what problems education can (and should) be addressing and what issues need to be handled by our society at large. It is definitely worth 50 minutes of your time to hear. Keith Devlin even goes so far as to call it our (math educators) “I Have a Dream” speech.

Below is the version of the speech compiled by Dan Meyer. The inclusion of the slides from the talk gives it even greater depth because there is some powerful data that Treisman presents.

(Word of warning, Treisman is giving a very honest speech so there is a little language that some readers of this site may find offensive. While I do not condone the exact wording used, I fully support the message being communicated.)

Uri Treisman’s “Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize” – NCTM 2013 from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.

The Need for Affective Learning

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Later this week I will be giving a talk at the 19th ACMS Conference entitled “Mathematical Affections: Assessing Values in the Math Classroom.” Overall I argue for 1) the need for affective learning, 2) the place of affective learning in mathematics, and 3) how we cultivate what I’ve termed as “mathematical affections.” I will post the talk in its entirety once I have given it. For now, I thought I would share a teaser from the introduction. Enjoy.

mathheart

How many of you, as math educators, have heard the question “When am I ever going to use this?” be uttered by your students? If you have been teaching for more than 5 minutes then it’s safe to assume that phrase has been mentioned in your presence. Occasionally it is posed as a valid question; the student is genuinely interested in the future career application of the topic at hand. However, I believe the majority of the time the phrase “When am I ever going to use this?” is spoken it is not as a question, but as a statement. A statement which implies that the obvious answer is “I will never use this so learning it is a waste of time.” The real issue being raised by these students is not one of application, but rather one of values. If we could translate their question into what they are really trying to communicate then “When am I ever going to use this?” will become “Why should I value this?” Students express their inquiry in terms of mathematical practicality because that is the language in which their culture, including their math teachers, has conditioned them to speak.

To illustrate how we as math educators have contributed to this misconception that value equals utility, let us turn our attention to the foundational document for composing the learning objectives and outcomes of an academic course: Bloom’s Taxonomy (pictured below).

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A quick glance at this chart will reveal that ‘application’ falls under the cognitive (mental/knowledge) domain of learning while ‘valuing’ falls under the affective (heart/feeling) domain of learning. The cognitive domain is almost exclusively emphasized in the preparation of teachers within the modern educational system while the affective domain is largely ignored. So while we ‘improve’ our teaching and questioning to make mathematics less abstract and to focus on real-life applications so that we can address the question of “When am I ever going to use this?” before it is even asked, we are actually implicitly teaching students that mathematical value is to be found only in application. If we really want to help those students address the true foundational question of “Why should I value this?” then we need to do so through increasing our attention on the affective domain of learning; writing rigorous learning objectives and developing quality assessments just as we do for the cognitive domain.

Now, application is certainly useful in the teaching process and it should not be ignored. I am not advocating the promotion of the affective domain over and above the cognitive. My goal is to simply bring the affective up to the same level as the cognitive. The best learning is done when both domains are utilized in conjunction with each other. In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis writes “Education without values, as useful as it is, tends to make man a more clever devil.” I believe this is a fairly accurate statement of the modern day system of education. If we don’t focus on values, if we don’t focus on the affective learning of our students, then their education will still be useful – they’ll increase in cognitive ability and learn to apply their thinking. But is that really valuable in and of itself? Without a proper sense of values to guide their application, aren’t we really just making students “more clever devils”?

You see, you can never actually remove values from education. Education is inherently value laden, and I believe Lewis knew this. It is not a question of “Are you teaching values?” but rather “Which values are you teaching?” Lewis’ point is that the value we instill in education should be affective – loving learning for its own sake and valuing wisdom. If you don’t focus on affections, then you still have usefulness, but is that really beneficial? In the words of the Bishop in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables: “The beautiful is as useful as the useful…Perhaps more so.”

Application is indeed useful but it should be presented in a way that promotes the development of what I’ll term mathematical affections. Learning has little meaning unless it produces a sustained and substantial influence not only on the way people think, but also on how they act and feel.