Abstract
I use Toni Morrison’s Paradise as a backdrop for framing a Black Liberatory Fantasy (Martin et al., 2019) that is rooted in what Dumas and ross (Urban Education, 51(4):415-442, 2016) have conceptualized as BlackCrit. The goal of the current undertaking is to evaluate anecdotes of this working idea of paradise, to merge it with more refined ones, and to dream even bigger about what paradise could look like for Black students in mathematics spaces. It is with this backdrop that I proffer how to fashion a Black liberatory mathematics education (BLiME), my conception of paradise, where Black students are expected to exist in their full humanity. I offer up five characteristics that inform the BLiME framework and are an extension of Morrison’s (2019) writings on paradise: beauty, plenty, rest, exclusivity, and eternity. I contend that Ruby, Morrison’s town in Paradise, had elements of these characteristics, but here, BLiME reimagines mathematics education as a full embodiment of what Ruby had the potential to be.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.
Notes
Freedom schools were an educational model for Black children developed during the 1960s by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Perlstein (2009) writes “Across Mississippi, freedom schools combined the civic curriculum centering on the movement with literary studies, journalism, creative writing, foreign languages, and other expressive endeavors. This combination both represented SNCC’s commitment to self-expression as a basis for political action and reflected a desire to offer disenfranchised Black youth the best of conventional American schooling” (p. 142). For more information see (Perlstein, 1990; Pinar, 2019)
References
Alexander, N. (2019). Daija’s awakening: Critical race theory and Afrofuturism in mathematics education. In J. Davis & C. C. Jett (Eds.), Critical race theory in mathematics education (pp. 56–74). Routledge.
Anderson, J., & Byrne, D. N. (2004). The unfinished agenda of Brown v. Board of Education. John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Battey, D. (2013). “Good” mathematics teaching for students of color and those in poverty: The importance of relational interactions within instruction. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 82(1), 125–144. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-012-9412-z
Beaman, K. (2021). Towards a reading of Black Lives Matter in Europe. Journal of Common Market Studies, 59, 103–114. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13275
Berry, R. Q. (2005). Introduction: Building an infrastructure for equity in mathematics education. The High School Journal, 88(4), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1353/hsj.2005.0006
Boykin, A. W. (1994). Afrocultural expression and its implications for schooling. In E. R. Hollis, J. E. King, & W. C. Hayman (Eds.), Teaching diverse populations: Formulating a knowledge base (pp. 243–273). State University of New York Press.
Breitenbach, A. (2015). Beauty in Proofs: Kant on aesthetics in mathematics. European Journal of Philosophy, 23(4), 955–977. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12021
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. (1954). 347 U.S. 483.
Bullock, E. C., Gholson, M. L., & Alexander, N. N. (2012). On the brilliance of Black children: A response to a clarion call. Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, 5(1), 1–7.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2004). Inequality and the right to learn: Access to qualified teachers in California’s public schools. Teachers College Record, 106(10), 1936–1966.
Davis, J., & Jett, C. C. (Eds.). (2019a). Critical race theory in mathematics education. Routledge.
Davis, J., & Jett, C. C. (2019b). Inserting mathematics into critical race theory in education: An exploration of William F. Tate’s Scholarship. In J. Davis & C. C. Jett (Eds.), Critical Race Theory in Mathematics education (pp. 7–17). Routledge.
Davis, P. J., & Hersh, R. (1998). The mathematical experience. Houghton Mifflin (Original work published 1981).
Deo, M. (2013). Two sides of a coin: Safe space & segregation in race/ethnic-specific law student organizations. Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, 42, 83–129. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2097926
Driscoll, M. (1999). Fostering algebraic thinking. Heinemann.
Dumas, M. J., & ross, K. M. (2016). “Be real Black for me”: Imagining BlackCrit in education. Urban Education, 51(4), 415–442. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085916628611
Ernest, P. (1998). Social constructivism as a philosophy of mathematics. State University of New York Press.
Faulkner, V. N., Stiff, L. V., Marshall, P. L., Nietfeld, J., & Crossland, C. L. (2014). Race and teacher evaluations as predictors of algebra placement. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 45(3), 288–311. https://doi.org/10.5951/jresematheduc.45.3.0288
Felton-Koestler, M. D. (2017). Mathematics education as sociopolitical: Prospective teachers’ views of the what, who, and how. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 20, 49–74. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-015-9315-x
Gholson, M. (2013). The mathematical lives of Black children: A sociocultural-historical rendering of Black brilliance. In J. Leonard & D. B. Martin (Eds.), The brilliance of Black children in mathematics: Beyond the numbers and toward new discourse (pp. 55–76). Information Age.
Givens, J. R. (2021). Fugitive pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the art of Black teaching. Harvard University Press.
Grant, C. A. (2020). Radical hope, education, and humanity. In C. A. Grant, A. N. Woodson, & M. J. Dumas (Eds.), The future is Black: Afropessimism, fugitivity, and radical hope in education (pp. 65–71). Routledge.
Groves Price, P., & Moore, R. (2016). (Re)claiming an activist identity as critical mathematics educators: Addressing anti-black racism because #BlackLivesMatter. Revista Latinoamericana de Etnomatemática, 9(3), 77–98.
Harper, S. R., & Davis III, C. H. (2012). They (don’t) care about education: A counternarrative on Black male students’ responses to inequitable schooling. Educational Foundations, 26, 103–120.
Hope, E. C., Skoog, A. B., & Jagers, R. J. (2015). “It’ll never be the white kids, it’ll always be us” Black high school students’ evolving critical analysis of racial discrimination and inequity in schools. Journal of Adolescent Research, 30(1), 83–112. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558414550688
Johnson, K. A. (2009). On classical versus vocational training: The educational ideas of Anna Julia Cooper and Nannie Helen Burroughs. In N. S. Anderson & H. Kharem (Eds.), Education as freedom: African American educational thought and activism (pp. 47–66). Lexington Books.
Karpman, M., Gonzalez, D., & Kenney, G. M. (2020). Parents are struggling to provide for their families during the pandemic. Urban Institute.
King, J. E., & Swartz, E. E. (2016). The Afrocentric praxis of teaching for freedom. Routledge.
Kirkland, D. E. (2021). A pedagogy for Black people: Why naming race matters. Equity & Excellence in Education: University of Massachusetts School of Education Journal, 54(1), 60–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2020.1867018
Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). From the achievement gap to the education debt: Understanding achievement in U.S. school. Educational Research, 35(7), 3–12.
Leonard, J., & Martin, D. B. (Eds.). (2013). The brilliance of Black children in mathematics: Beyond the numbers and toward new discourse. Information Age.
Martin, D. B. (2009). Researching race in mathematics education. Teachers College Record, 111(2), 295–338.
Martin, D. B. (2019). Equity, inclusion, and antiblackness in mathematics education. Race Ethnicity and Education, 22(4), 459–478. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1592833
Martin, D. B., Groves Price, P., & Moore, R. (2019). Refusing systemic violence against Black children: Toward a liberatory mathematics education. In J. Davis & C. C. Jett (Eds.), Critical Race Theory in Mathematics education (pp. 32–55). Routledge.
Matthews, L. E., Jessup, N. A., & Sears, R. (2021). Looking for “us”: Power reimagined in mathematics learning for Black communities in the pandemic. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 108(1), 333–350. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-021-10106-4
McGee, E. O., & Martin, D. B. (2011). “You would not believe what I have to go through to prove my intellectual value!” stereotype management among academically successful Black mathematics and engineering students. American Educational Research Journal, 48(6), 1347–1389. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831211423972
Milner IV, H. R. (2018). Where’s the race in culturally relevant pedagogy? Teachers College Record, 119(1), 1–31.
Moreau, M. P., Mendick, H., & Epstein, D. (2010). Constructions of mathematicians in popular culture and learners’ narratives: A study of mathematical and non-mathematical subjectivities. Cambridge Journal of Education, 40(1), 25–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057640903567013
Morrison, T. (1997). Paradise. A.A. Knopf.
Morrison, T. (2019). The source of self-regard: Selected essays, speeches, and meditations. Knopf.
Moses, R. P., & Cobb, C. E. (2002). Radical equations. Beacon.
Muhammad, G. E., Ortiz, N. A., & Neville, M. L. (2021). A historically responsive literacy model for reading and mathematics. The Reading Teacher, 75(1), 73–81.
Ortiz, N. A. (2022). Let our rejoicing rise without bound: A focus on Black Language and mathematics learning. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2061623
Ortiz, N. A., Capraro, M. M., & Capraro, R. M. (2018). Does it really matter? Exploring cultural relevance within a majority White classroom. The Journal of Negro Education, 87(4), 404–419.
Ortiz, N. A., & Jessup, N. (2022). Blackness and the pandemic: Critiquing the mathematics curriculum in a large urban city. Equity & Excellence in Education: University of Massachusetts School of Education Journal, 55(4), 357–370. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2022.2076783
Ortiz, N. A., & Morton, T. R. (2022). Empowering Black mathematics students through a framework of communalism and collective Black identity. Journal of Urban Mathematics Education, 15(1), 54–77. https://doi.org/10.21423/jume-v15i1
Ortiz, N. A., & Ruwe, D. (2021). Black English and mathematics education: A critical look at culturally sustaining pedagogy. Teachers College Record, 123(10), 1–28.
OutKast. (1998). Aquemini [Album]. LaFace Records.
Perlstein, D. (1990). Teaching freedom: SNCC and the creation of the Mississippi freedom schools. History of Education Quarterly, 30(3), 297–324.
Perlstein, D. (2009). Live the truth: Politics and pedagogy in the African American movement for freedom and liberation. In N. S. Anderson & H. Kharem (Eds.), Education as freedom: African American educational thought and activism (pp. 137–161). Lexington Books.
Picker, S. H., & Berry, J. S. (2000). Investigating pupils’ images of mathematicians. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 43(1), 65–94.
Pinar, W. F. (1994). Notes on understanding curriculum as racial text. In C. McCarty & W. Crichlow (Eds.), Race, identity, and representation in education (pp. 60–70). Routledge.
Pinar, W. F. (2019). What is curriculum theory? (3rd ed.). Lawrence Erbaulm Associates.
Siddle Walker, V. (2000). Value segregated schools for African American children in the south, 1935-1969: A review of common themes and characteristics. Review of Educational Research, 70(3), 253–285. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543070003253
Siddle Walker, V. (2013). Ninth annual Brown lecture in education research: Black educators as educational advocates in the decades before Brown V. Board of Education. Educational Research, 42(4), 207–222. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X13490140
Siddle Walker, V. (2018). The lost education of Horace Tate: Uncovering the hidden heroes who fought for justice in schools. The New Press.
Smitherman, G. (2015). African American language and education: History and controversy in the twentieth century. In S. Lanehart (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of African American language (pp. 547–565). Oxford University Press.
Stinson, D. W. (2006). African American male adolescents, schooling (and mathematics): Deficiency, rejection, and achievement. Review of Educational Research, 76(4), 477–506.
Tate, W. F. (1995). School mathematics and African American students: Thinking seriously about opportunity-to-learn standards. Educational Administration Quarterly, 31(3), 424–448. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X95031003006
Tate, W. F. (2005). Access and opportunities to learn are not accidents: Engineering mathematical progress in your school. SERVE Center.
Toliver, S. R. (2023). It will take nations of billions to obstruct our dreams: Extending BlackCrit through Afrofuturism. Journal for Multicultural Education. https://doi.org/10.1108/JME-11-2022-0141
Woodson, A. (2020). Afropessimism for us in education: In fugitivity, through fuckery and with funk. In C. A. Grant, A. N. Woodson, & M. J. Dumas (Eds.), The future is Black: Afropessimism, fugitivity, and radical hope in education (pp. 16–21). Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The author declares no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ortiz, N.A. Lessons in paradise: envisioning a Black liberatory mathematics education. Educ Stud Math (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-023-10263-8
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-023-10263-8