Ontario is taking math out of class and replacing it with other subjects like spelling, geography, and history. Why is this happening? And why are they doing it to Asian kids the most? Ezra Levenrant has some theories.
00:02:04.760Here's a team that was specifically for girls to encourage young women to go into math. This is
00:02:23.780their team. It's more diverse. Anna Krokin, and then Elaine Liu, Jennifer Wang, and Emily Zhou.
00:02:33.980Now, I've checked other years for this same team. The demographics are about the same.
00:02:41.160Can I say it? It's mainly Chinese kids. I mean, that's just a fact. Why?
00:02:47.060I have some theories, none of which are racist. A lot of these kids come from immigrant families
00:02:54.300who take a very keen interest in their kids' education, who came to Canada for opportunity,
00:03:00.040and they're not going to let their kids just slough it off. No gender studies or vegetarian
00:03:04.900studies for their kids. No just playing video games and smoking pot all day. Study, study, study,
00:03:10.600make the family proud. It's that immigrant mentality. And that's part of it. I think another part that's
00:03:16.960related is if you immigrate to Canada, maybe your English isn't so strong. It's not your first
00:03:21.940language. So perhaps math is something that you can excel at no matter what your native tongue is.
00:03:28.840And a related answer, and I think this is important, is math is not subjective.
00:03:32.600You either know the answer to a math question or you don't. There's no wiggle room.
00:03:36.660There's no favoritism. It's a pure meritocracy. Other things in life aren't. It's about who you know,
00:03:43.980not what you know. Does anyone believe that Justin Trudeau would be our prime minister now
00:03:48.380if he didn't have any of the luck of being Pierre Trudeau's son? Math doesn't work that way. You know
00:03:54.720it or you don't. So those are three theories as to why Canada's math teams are overwhelmingly Asian.
00:04:03.960Frankly, I'll tell you that out of ethnic pride, I had hoped to see a Jew on one of those teams, but
00:04:09.540I guess it wasn't to be. This does cause some policy issues in places that care about race-based
00:04:16.020outcomes. One of the most racist places in the world these days are universities. So whether this
00:04:22.800is nurture or nature, it's happening. Asian kids are great at math and science. So if you're a school
00:04:28.220that insists on checking people's race and having racial proportions in the name of affirmative action
00:04:35.220or whatever you're doing or whatever you're calling you now, you're going to have to discriminate against
00:04:39.340Asians. It happens like crazy in elite schools. California is the worst. They explicitly penalize
00:04:46.840Asian kids. They make them have to have much higher test scores to get into school. You know, they used to
00:04:53.280do that to Jews too, even here in Canada. About 70 years ago or so, they limited the number of Jewish kids who
00:04:59.620were admitted to, for example, McGill for the law school and the med school. Now they're doing that
00:05:04.780to Asians. My point is math isn't just not racist. Math is anti-racist. Math is where you can go for a
00:05:15.780refuge from racism. Because math doesn't care if you're black or white or Asian or Jewish or Gentile or
00:05:22.000whatever it is, a meritocracy. So imagine saying that math is racist. Well, if that idea is new to you,
00:05:31.220you haven't been paying attention. Focusing on the correct answer in maths is racist. That's from the
00:05:39.160Times of London. That's the theory. It's not just some crackpot pundit who's saying that. It's part of a
00:05:44.240massive program bankrolled in part by Bill Gates, of course, to racialize math instruction. Here's how the
00:05:51.340Times Union describes it. They say, objectivity is particularly toxic, and practices that perpetuate
00:05:58.940and reinforce objectivity must be dismantled. Focusing on the right answer can lead to underdeveloped
00:06:04.700reasoning skills and a failure to grasp the complexities of math. Consistent with this,
00:06:10.540perfectionism is to be dismantled, as it also places too much value on getting it right.
00:06:16.220The notion that new learning comes from the teacher is a paternalistic, power-hoarding method
00:06:20.720to perpetuate white supremacy. That's a pretty good summary of it. They're criticizing it,
00:06:26.160but that's a great way to sum up this new math business. Now, let's stop for a moment to remind
00:06:31.060you why math is important. Not for everyone, I acknowledge. I mean, if most people don't know
00:06:36.700math, the worst that's going to happen is, I don't know, they don't know how to live within a budget or
00:06:40.620how to do their taxes or they don't know how to count their change or they get bamboozled by some
00:06:45.240payment plan or don't understand their credit card interest, for example.
00:06:50.660But if you're trying to be excellent in math, like those math Olympians who are not even that great,
00:06:55.220but just really good so maybe you can get a certain job in engineering or architecture or something,
00:07:01.040if you get it wrong, you could have a high-rise fall down or a bridge fall down. In fact,
00:07:07.520that's the story behind the iron ring that engineers wear. It's allegedly made from the steel of a bridge
00:07:13.820that fell down because of bad math. It's like an airline pilot or a brain surgeon. You want the
00:07:19.780best person, no matter if they're male or female or whatever their race, please don't mess around
00:07:25.560with those things, okay? Which brings me to the atrocious government of Ontario. We already know.
00:07:31.300They don't care about schools. I think they're the last jurisdiction in North America to still ban
00:07:36.900children from going to schools in person using the pandemic as the excuse. Seriously, they're on
00:07:42.460Zoom calls all day. No schools, no kids' sports. And it's not even certain that'll end this September.
00:07:49.300Kids who have the lowest mortality rate for this virus are being punished by the lockdown itself
00:07:54.240in Ontario. And the biggest children's hospital in Ontario says it's causing an epidemic of
00:07:59.100depression and suicide, but the Ontario Conservative government doesn't give a damn.
00:08:03.760So really what I'm talking about should not come as a surprise to you. They don't really care
00:08:07.940about school to begin with. But here is the Ontario math curriculum for grade nine.
00:08:14.560You know you're in trouble when the word algebra appears just once, but the phrase human rights
00:08:21.460appears five times. I counted. Human rights, equity, and inclusive education in mathematics
00:08:28.320research indicates that there are groups of students. For example, indigenous students,
00:08:33.260black students, students experiencing homelessness, students living in poverty,
00:08:38.500students with LGBTQ plus identities, students with special education needs and disabilities
00:08:44.380who continue to experience systematic barriers to accessing high level instruction in and support
00:08:52.020with learning mathematics. Let me just stop for a moment. Are they saying that gay people are bad
00:08:59.880at math? Where did that come from? And why are we even talking about this? Why are we defining entire racial
00:09:06.780and demographic groups as victims and saying they can't learn? What are we doing? This is math, people.
00:09:13.980Students bring abundant cultural knowledges, experiences, and competencies into mathematical learning.
00:09:20.820Okay, what's that got to do with algebra or the Pythagorean theorem or a long division or fractions?
00:09:26.060In mathematics classrooms, teachers also provide opportunities for cross-curricular learning
00:09:32.760and for teaching about human rights to create anti-racist, anti-discriminatory learning environments.
00:09:38.600All educators must be committed to equity and inclusion and to upholding and promoting the human rights of every learner.
00:09:45.600Hey, guys, sorry to interrupt. I think I might have found our problem here.
00:09:49.940I think I might have found out why all these victim groups are doing so poorly in math.
00:09:56.640I think it's because we're not teaching them math.
00:10:01.380Challenging Eurocentric ideas about learning mathematics is key to a CRRP approach.
00:10:07.220That's cross-cultural or something, something.
00:10:10.260In an anti-racist and anti-discriminatory environment, teachers know that there is more than one way to develop a solution.
00:10:16.080And students are exposed to multiple ways of knowing and encouraged to explore multiple ways of finding answers.
00:10:23.420I'm going to send all those Chinese kids a stern letter for them to stop using Eurocentric ideas about math.
00:10:31.300Put aside all the BS language for a moment.
00:10:33.900This is where it gets real. Look at this.
00:10:36.380An equitable mathematics curriculum recognizes that mathematics can be subjective.
00:10:40.940Mathematics is often positioned as an object of impure discipline.
00:10:46.280However, the content and the context in which it is taught, the mathematicians who are celebrated,
00:10:51.240and the importance that is placed upon mathematics by society are subjective.
00:10:55.780Mathematics has been used to normalize racism and marginalization of non-Eurocentric mathematical knowledges.
00:11:02.460And a decolonial, anti-racist approach to mathematics education makes visible its historical roots and social constructions.
00:11:12.680The Ontario Grade 9 mathematics curriculum emphasizes the need to recognize and challenge systems of power and privilege,
00:11:20.800both inside and outside the classroom,
00:11:22.360in order to eliminate systemic barriers and to serve students belonging to groups that have been historically disadvantaged and understood in mathematics education.
00:19:09.680And just talk about a country that, if it was liberated, all the Cuban Americans who have made it big would go and fix up their homeland and pour wealth in it.
00:19:23.440Not through some government marshal plan, but that country could thrive again.
00:19:38.580The first is from Jen Psaki, who just can't let go of this COVID line.
00:19:45.420Here's a little exchange from the White House Press Gallery.
00:19:47.820And then on Cuba, you're talking today about how some of these protests are inspired by people exhausted with the government.
00:19:55.780Why is it that yesterday the State Department was saying that this was all happening out of concern about rising COVID cases?
00:20:02.400Well, I would say first that the protests were just happening yesterday.
00:20:07.340We're still assessing what is motivating and, of course, and driving all of the individuals who came to the streets.
00:20:13.380But we know that when we say exhaustion, the manner by which the people of Cuba are governed, that can cover a range of issues,
00:20:23.160whether it's economic suppression, media suppression, lack of access to health and medical supplies, including vaccines.
00:20:30.860There are a range of reasons and voices we're hearing from people on the ground who are protesting.
00:20:35.180So when these protesters are yelling freedom and enough, there are people within the administration who think they are saying freedom from rising COVID cases.
00:20:43.440Again, I would say that when people are out there in the streets protesting and complaining about the lack of access to economic prosperity,
00:20:54.040to the medical supplies they need, to a life they deserve to live, that can take on a range of meetings.
00:22:06.280And he wasn't talking about COVID vaccines there.
00:22:08.800So I say that was an improvement over 48 hours ago.
00:22:12.620So three things that you can learn from just those two video clips.
00:22:17.300One is that Joe Biden has long had a more hawkish personal view on Cuba than the Obama administration would allow.
00:22:26.220During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden claimed that he had been tough on Castro.
00:22:30.940That was not true as regards his behavior during the Obama administration.
00:22:34.540It was true with regard to his behavior in the Senate.
00:22:38.200When Joe Biden was a senator, he had a much tougher policy on Cuba.
00:22:41.480He then shelved that policy as he was part of the Obama administration, stood right by Barack Obama during the normalization of relations with the Cuban regime.
00:22:51.060And Jill Biden even went to soccer matches and so forth with Cuba.
00:22:56.040So they were part of this normalization.
00:22:58.960Now you're seeing Joe Biden revert to his prior policy.
00:23:30.900He is doing whatever he needs to do to store up energy for the week, but he's not always at the helm.
00:23:38.540So that's another reason you saw a response that was very lackluster initially from the administration.
00:23:44.120And the third thing is you see Jen Psaki trying to square those two different kinds of statements.
00:23:48.460On the one hand, about COVID cases on Sunday and then on Monday talking about freedom and the right to protest and so forth.
00:23:54.720And what she says, if you watch the whole briefing, is that President Biden's constantly being briefed about this or that.
00:24:03.620She's constantly at pains to reassure the reporters that Biden is being told about everything.
00:24:08.100Her language implies that he's not really running most things.
00:24:12.280And I'm not making a statement necessarily about his mental capacity and that kind of thing.
00:24:16.320But I do think the Biden administration is run by committee, that there are people at a senior level, many of whom are veterans from the Obama administration, like Psaki, like Susan Rice, people from the Clinton administration, both Clinton administrations, Clinton administration that would have been if Hillary had won.
00:24:32.660And, of course, Bill Clinton's administration.
00:24:34.900I think people are sitting around and they bat these issues around.
00:24:40.100And I do think there's a reluctance among some of the people in the room to acknowledge that Obama's outreach to Cuba was a failure.
00:24:45.540The demonstrators in the street are telling the world that the regime itself is the problem.
00:24:51.060That flies in the face of Obama's assumption.
00:24:53.460Obama went along with the idea that it was the American embargo that was the problem.
00:24:57.760It was the American resistance to the communist regime that caused poverty.
00:25:01.680And there are a lot of Democrats, not left-wing crazies, but real solid party members for whom Cuba is always a little romantic spot in their imaginations.
00:25:11.680They want to preserve the idea that socialism can work in some place, maybe if you have nice weather, let's say, not like Russia or something.
00:25:19.300And they want to hold on to the idea that it's only because of American intransigence that Cuba has suffered and failed.
00:25:25.140Well, this is the reason that Psaki is dancing around when you see Peter Doocy of Fox News ask her those very direct questions.
00:25:33.340She's trying to square the two different statements Sunday to Monday, but she's also trying to represent a very divided group that is making the key decisions in the Biden administration.
00:25:44.920Very interesting. And you're so right. I mean, we're used to Donald Trump.
00:25:51.280You know, he would play a few rounds of golf throughout the year.
00:25:55.160But other than that, I don't think he ever took a vacation.
00:26:00.720He just didn't. And even when he was playing golf, it was either, you know, play a game of golf, but then he was working out of Mar-a-Lago or whatever.
00:26:10.800And, you know, he was writing his own tweets. I think we all know that.
00:26:15.140So and those never stopped. And those and you could even see when he got up and went to bed because, you know, that's when the tweet stopped or started again.
00:26:23.780The guy was never off. He was never low energy.
00:26:27.660I mean, he invented that phrase, high energy, low. He he called his critics low energy.
00:26:32.420Joe Biden is snooze button like you're you're right. He just I think you're exactly right.
00:26:37.480I think they didn't know what to say on the weekend. They knew they had to say something.
00:26:42.140And so they rolled out the lowest key person they could just to avoid.
00:26:46.540I don't think it's going to work. I don't think you can be the president of the United States of America in these crazy times and work a 35 hour work week.
00:26:57.100Yeah, Donald Trump would combine his leisure activities with his work.
00:27:02.040So he never really took a vacation and play a round of golf and go right back to work.
00:27:05.580He doesn't seem to need much sleep either. But one thing is certain.
00:27:08.820He was absolutely clear about the need for freedom in Cuba and Iran and other places.
00:27:15.220Another thing that's also interesting that a lot of Americans are noticing is that the Cubans are marching with the American flag,
00:27:22.480as are demonstrators in Hong Kong and demonstrators in Iran when they can.
00:27:28.300And it's interesting that the American flag is still the freedom symbol for people who are oppressed around the world.
00:27:35.240Our own elite doesn't seem to think so. You know, our some of our Olympic athletes don't want to stand for the anthem and some of our highly paid professional athletes want to kneel when they fly the flag at a football game.
00:27:45.200But the people who really care about freedom still believe in the American flag.
00:27:50.640Yeah, I think it was the New York Times just the other day saying the New York, the American flag is now a divisive symbol.
00:27:56.840They have this whole story about how only sort of hicks and hillbillies fly it.
00:28:01.880But I don't think those are hicks and hillbillies in Havana or Hong Kong or other places like that.
00:28:08.680You know, you just said something and I've just been thinking about it, that Jen Psaki is going to lengths to assure reporters that Biden's being briefed on things.
00:28:18.200I don't think anyone had to reassure people that Trump was being briefed.
00:28:24.880Trump would grill people. Trump would have a command of certain not on every issue.
00:28:28.480I mean, it's the same way with our former prime minister, Stephen Harper.
00:28:32.600You felt that he had total command of the file, at least of those things that really that he really cared about.
00:28:38.820Like it was so clear that Trump was intimately involved in any foreign affairs negotiation, whether it was the USMCA trade deal or with the North Korean deal or with NATO.
00:28:51.720Like Trump, you know, was he briefed? Yeah, but he could give the briefing.
00:28:55.720So you wouldn't have to have had a spokesman saying, hey, guys, I just want to let you know, we really did brief Donald Trump on this really well today.
00:29:04.420Like people would say, why are you telling us that the fact that Jen Psaki has to reassure people is, in fact, the strongest proof that it's not happening.
00:29:12.540I don't know. I just I'm just worried about it. And you're right. There's a hollowness.
00:29:16.220Let me ask you one last question. I put this to to our viewers the other day.
00:29:19.480I think that Kamala Harris would like Joe Biden to retire before the end of his term so that she can try on the clothes of president,
00:29:30.240both to head off a serious challenge in the Democratic presidential primary and also so she could go into the general election saying, no, I am a president.
00:29:40.960I've actually done it. So you don't have to try hard to imagine it. You you've seen it.
00:29:48.420How about that tension in the White House? I know some pundits say there's tension between Team Harris and Team Biden.
00:29:56.420Do you think that's just gossip or do you think it's real?
00:30:01.000I don't think the tension is between Team Harris and Team Biden.
00:30:04.220I think it's between Team Harris and the Democratic Party.
00:30:06.580The Democratic Party wants Kamala Harris to know that she works for them, that they're the ones who put her in power.
00:30:12.620It's not even Joe Biden. She was selected to add to the ticket, but she ran a terrible campaign.
00:30:19.060She was on a road to political oblivion.
00:30:21.480She is supposed to do what the party tells her to do.
00:30:25.800What's interesting is that the Joe Biden administration has given Kamala Harris the most unenviable and unaccomplishable tasks in the administration,
00:30:32.740like securing the border, for example, or dealing with the border when they don't enforce the border laws.
00:30:39.080She is not allowed to succeed. She's been given assignments in which she can only fail.
00:30:45.620And that's interesting. That's not necessarily a Biden decision.
00:30:50.080Initially, I think the approach to her was to give her no particular portfolio.
00:30:53.960So she looked like she could train for the job in general.
00:30:57.300She could attend every meeting, look over his shoulder.
00:30:59.320She looked more like a president in waiting. But then she got this border job.
00:31:03.160She started getting other jobs as well, which are very specific in particular and which cannot be done well.
00:31:08.280They just can't. So it looks to me like someone in the Democratic Party or in that politburo, for lack of a better term,
00:31:15.200that's running the administration. Somebody decided she was getting too big for her britches.
00:31:18.520And they have decided to undermine her by giving her assignments that make her look bad.
00:31:22.940She knows she's getting the worst assignments.
00:31:25.060Now you're seeing leaks to the press that her staff are unhappy.
00:31:28.600I think Kamala Harris would love Joe Biden to step down because it is the only way that she will gain some leverage in this situation.
00:31:35.920I don't know that she's a shoo-in for 2024, even if she is the president running for re-election or for election, I guess,
00:31:42.740since she won't have been elected at the first term.
00:31:44.780But it depends on what happens in these midterms.
00:31:47.400I think if the Biden administration loses one or both houses of Congress,
00:31:53.060I think that not even Kamala Harris is going to be able to save the party.
00:31:57.380And there will be a primary challenge.
00:31:59.880They'll look for another stronger candidate.