What Do Black Lives Matter and "Don't Ask Don't Tell" Have to Do with Math? • by Nicolas Pestieau, PhD (Professor of Mathematics, Eastern)

In sequential math courses such as pre-calculus or calculus, it is always a challenge to incorporate JEDI approaches since so much of the content is technical and divorced from questions of politics, gender, race, etc.  However, there is a fascinating and diverse history that led to the development of many of the topics covered in these courses.  I make a point of emphasizing that much of our modern mathematics came as a result of crucial contributions from Middle Eastern and East Asian scholars—far from the wig-and-powder figures associated with Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment in Europe. 

For example, essential algebraic techniques like the completion of the square (used to solve quadratic equations) were first introduced by the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi in the 9th century AD.  Many important sums of infinite series and power series used in trigonometry were already known to Indian mathematicians in the Kerala school centuries before Newton and Leibniz developed calculus in the late 1600s. I also mention the contributions of famous women mathematicians in areas like number theory (Sophie Germain, 19th C.), mathematical physics (Emily Noether, 20th C.) and hyperbolic geometry (Maryam Myrzakhani, 21st C.).

In order to reduce anxiety during exams and, ultimately, improve equity in student performance, I like to scaffold problems into several parts and emphasize particular conceptual or analytical methods by providing answers at the outset. Thus, directives like “compute this” or “find this” get turned into “show that” or “confirm that.”   

In liberal arts courses like MAT 101, I pull on examples that relate to students’ everyday lives to bring out basic logical concepts.  On a recent exam, for example, I asked for the equivalent conditional form of a statement that was plastered all over campus about Covid-19 measures (“Students coming to campus must be masked and...”).  I also discuss the logic of propositions found in lyrics, hip hop or literature as well as in themes of social justice.  For instance, the discriminatory Clinton-era policy in the military of “Don't ask, don’t tell” lends itself to some interesting logic (Is this policy equivalent to “If you ask, then they must tell?”). With the BLM movement, what kind of Venn diagram applies statements like “Black Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter”?  Does it follow that the negation of both statements is “No black or blue live matter”?

In the above ways, I am able to integrate attention to diversity, equity and social justice even in the most technical of mathematics courses.