Teacher ponders why everybody thinks (only) Asians are good at math

http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/2010/09/ethnicity-racism-and-math.html

Monday, September 20, 2010


Ethnicity, Racism and Math…

by Nick Diaz

(Originally published August 31, 2010, on TheTentacle.com: http://thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=3936

Republished on the Betrayed blog with permission from author Nick Diaz, gssuzukiguy2004@yahoo.com,

and from John Ashbury, editor and publisher of TheTentacle.com.)

In early 2009, I was coaching the MATHCOUNTS competition team at The Barnesville School, then my place of employment. MATHCOUNTS is a nationwide system of mathematics competitions, open to middle schools students in the USA.

Students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, in public, private, and home schools are eligible to participate. From 1986 through 2009, I coached the math teams at Gov. Thomas Johnson Middle School in Frederick, Middletown Middle, and at Barnesville.

As the four Barnesville eighth graders were getting ready for the upcoming state competition, one of my “mathletes” mentioned that our team didn’t have much of a chance of placing high, because, after all, we didn’t have Asian students on our team. After all, Asian students from China, India, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are inherently good at math, and better than anyone else.

continued at link above....



The stereotyping of Asian students goes on, unabated, throughout our society. I consider this to be as racist an attitude as outright negative discrimination based on skin color and cultural differences.