Who Decides What Counts as Knowledge?

One question that kept coming to my mind when reading these texts was the topic of who gets to decide what knowledge is necessary in school?

Being a future math teacher I like to think of knowledge in a relatively straightforward way. Students need to know how to solve equations, understand functions, deal with graphs, and acquire diverse arithmetic strategies. But the readings got me thinking further about what children bring to the classroom already and if schools really respect that knowledge.

What struck me about Lee's reading was the idea of using everyday information. As Lee describes, Students come to school with knowledge from their families, communities, their experiences, and their everyday practices. While trained to see information in school as something different, teachers might use what students already know as a beginning point for the learning of academic subject. Lee (2007)

I think this is especially relevant in math, because children are using mathematical thinking all the time, even if they don’t label it “math.” They might compare costs when shopping, estimate how long it will take to travel somewhere, distribute meals amongst people, calculate how much money they need, or see patterns in games. A textbook problem about ratios might not make sense to a kid right away, but the idea of comparing amounts might already make sense to them from what they do outside of school .

It makes me question why students are sometimes treated as they walk into the classroom knowing nothing.

Lee also talks about the need to provide students with the opportunity to work on complex and significant topics, rather than focusing on memorization and simple methods. Lee argues for learning environments in which students can access prior knowledge, engage in difficult challenges, articulate their ideas, and take intellectual risks.I liked this idea because it reminded me that rigor is about deeper thinking, not just harder or more work. More challenges for students does not necessarily guarantee more deep thought.

Baldwin had me thinking about this in a different way. He says that education should offer students the tools to look at the world for themselves and challenge the culture in which they find themselves living. He even believes that as people get more conscious, they begin to look at the society in which they are being educated. Baldwin (1963)

This seems to be more than learning content.

If education is to let students think for themselves, teachers cannot just tell students what they need to know and expect them to accept it. Students should be able to question, find connections, and incorporate their own experiences into what they are studying.

Smith’s response to Baldwin made this all the more relevant to real classrooms. Smith said he was going through the prescribed curriculum, but his students had to deal with things happening outside of school. Finally, he came to believe that literature might be used to assist students, explore their own environment, and that rigorous and culturally or politically relevant learning need not be at odds. Smith (2017)

I think this is crucial because sometimes teachers could assume, “I have to teach the curriculum so I do not have time for students’ experiences.” But maybe what kids experience can be a part of how we teach the subject.

The conversation between Toni Morrison and Angela Davis also made me think about literacy as something far bigger than just being able to read words on a paper. Morrison talks about visual literacy and our ability to “read” the world around us and Davis addresses the relationship between literacy, access to knowledge and liberation. Their talk even mentions Frederick Douglass and how learning to read gave him a whole other vision of the world.    

All of these readings seem to be linked by the notion that learning is not passive.

Students are not blank slates for teachers to write on. They have experiences, questions, knowledge and methods of understanding the world. The teacher’s responsibility, then, may be less about giving students information, and more about enabling them to integrate what they already know with new ideas, and giving them the tools to examine and understand things more fully.

That reminds me of another question about math education.

We are often told that mathematics is not about culture or identity. There is a correct answer, a formula, and a technique. But our style of teaching math may still acknowledge students’ lives. Instead of having students always solve random word problems that are not relevant to them, teachers might develop problems that relate to circumstances students are familiar with. Students should also be encouraged to explain how they solved something, rather than being taught there is only one appropriate approach to go through a problem.

I don’t think that means every math class has to be a conversation about students’ personal life. Students still need to learn about mathematics concepts and techniques. But I think Lee’s argument is that their prior knowledge can be a bridge to academic knowledge, rather than something that has to be left outside the classroom. Lee (2007)

So I am left asking myself:

How can we make room for students’ everyday knowledge without compromising the academic standards we have for them?

And perhaps an even bigger question is:

Who gets the opportunity to choose what counts as knowledge in the classroom—the curriculum, the teacher, the student, or some mix of all three?