The Education for Liberation Network presents talkin ’bout math and social justice: a public, online discussion about how math education can be used to forward social justice and how social justice can be used to improve math education.

Wednesday, March 19 to Thursday, March 20

www.edliberation.org/talkin-bout

Talkin’ bout is an online discussion series that brings together educators, activists and youth to participate in a public conversation on the network website about timely and important topics in liberatory education. From Wednesday, March 19 to Thursday, March 20 a panel that includes Algebra Project founder Bob Moses and RadicalMath.org founder Jonathan Osler will answer questions posted to an online discussion board about math and social justice. The conversation will take place on the website of the Education for Liberation Network.

talkin ’bout.math and social justice is linked to the upcoming national conference, Creating Balance in an Unjust World. Creating Balance provides a unique space in which educators can come together to explore questions, challenges, and opportunities to work for social and economic justice through mathematics and math education. This conference is sponsored by Radical Math and Long Island University.

The panelists are:

* Bob Moses, Founder and President of the Algebra Project

Author of Radical Equations and former Civil Rights Movement organizer.

* Jonathan Osler, who taught math at El Puente Academy for Peace & Justice for six years and is currently a math coach in Los Angeles. He is the founder of RadicalMath.org and an organizer of the Creating Balance in an Unjust World conference on math & social justice.

* Darnisha Hill, a junior at the Greater Lawndale/Little Village School for Social Justice in Chicago and a member of the school’s “mathematics for social justice” team. As part of the team, Darnisha participated in five regional and national conferences to present their work and research.

* Patricia Buenrostro, who has taught high school mathematics for 10 years in Chicago. Currently she is pursuing a PhD at the University of Illinois at Chicago in Curriculum. Her research interests are math and social justice, community engagement in schools, and teacher professional development in mathematics reform.

* Saara Nafici, Projects Coordinator for the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project in New York. She provides technical support to community groups, collaborates on GIS mapping projects, engages in coalition organizing and organizes the annual Community Reinvestment Workshop Series.

Also available on the website are samples of social justice math lesion plans.

The network invites all those interested in this important issue to post their own questions and comments for the panelists and for each other. Anyone can read the discussion without registering. To post, first you must register to use the site.

We hope this will be an enlightening and lively digital conversation.

The Education for Liberation Network is a national coalition of teachers, community activists, youth, researchers and parents who believe a good education should teach people-particularly low-income youth and youth of color-to understand and challenge the injustices their communities face.

For more information contact Tara Mack, Director, Education for Liberation Network at tara@edliberation.org.