When everything is swirling around you and you’re starting to feel unsure of your footing, it’s natural to seek out solid ground and something secure to grasp onto. What do you do, however, when even the most fundamental things that you were taught and believe are constantly being challenged and called into question?
What do you do when you’re not even sure how to think about something as basic as 2+2?
Part of the time, I find myself thinking about the statement “2 + 2 = 5” and all that it represents. Other times, my thoughts have been focused on the equation “2 + 2 = 4” and the place it has held as a cornerstone in American public education. And then as my mind usually does, it starts to make connections between the two, connections which often take me to places I’d rather not be.
2 + 2 = 5
A new generation of Americans discovered the phrase “2 + 2 = 5” in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. And in a manner that Americans have raised to an art form, they have devoted the years since then to overusing, misconstruing, and abusing the phrase to the point that the phrase has largely been neutered at a time when its message and its warning should be taken most seriously. In some circles it has even been appropriated and adopted as a battle cry for “free thinking.”
In a way that is also distinctly American, most who associate the phrase solely with the dystopian novel 1984have probably not actually read Orwell’s book, as it was one of those assigned readings from 75 years ago that most students just don’t find engaging.
I am also confident that most of those who have actually read the book (it did surge to #6 on Amazon in 2017) are blissfully unaware that the phrase “2+2=5” in one form or another has been used as a warning by Western writers and philosophers for centuries – yup, the very same white, male, European crew who wrought the misogynistic, racist, society and historical truths those hashtagging “2+2=5” across social media today are working so hard to undo.
It would be great if someone would condense the history of the phrase into a 30-second TikTok video if for no other reason than the pleasure it would bring me to observe the cognitive dissonance and confusion it would cause as they wrestle with that inconvenient truth. What am I saying, these folks are quite adept at embracing two or more contradictory thoughts at the same time. It’s their superpower.
But seriously, …
At a time when it is becoming exponentially easier day-by-day to create and disseminate information, absolute truth, increasingly regarded as an inconvenience, is under attack from anti-intellectualism on one side and pseudo-intellectualism on the other.
Personally, I tend to fear the pseudo-intellectuals more than the anti-intellectuals. The motives and alternate facts of the anti-intellectuals are usually easier to discern and untangle than the minds and alternate speech of pseudo-intellectuals, their messages often delivered in the form of mindboggling euphemisms that were once the purview of the military, measurement specialists, and teachers at parent-teacher conferences. Not to mention their overreliance on tortured and convoluted arguments that remind me of Samuel Johnson’s quote, “You may have a reason why two and two should make five, but they will still make four.”
I also find it particularly disarming that unlike most of the dystopian novels and histories I have read, it is not an authoritarian government that is behind the pseudo-intellectual’s groupspeak, doublethink, and rewriting of history. Government, no. Authoritarian, yes. The consequences of not walking the line and falling into line with them are swift and severe. I imagine that if Camus were writing The Plague (published contemporaneously with 1984, by the way) today, he would describe the current period as the time when those who dared to say that 2+2=4 rather than 2+2=5 were cancelled and shunned, even as it becomes clear that although two plus two may not equal four, it almost certainly does not equal five.
And then I wonder, in a world where 2+2=5, where does a seemingly innocuous mathematical fact like 2+2=4 fit into the public school curriculum?
2 + 2 = 4
Let’s accept for a moment that there is agreement that 2+2=4, at least mathmematically. Acceptance of that fact does not automatically lead to agreement that 2+2=4 should be taught in school, and if it should be taught, how it should be taught, and what should be acceptable evidence that a student has grasped the concept.
Even if 2+2=4, we still have to work through prevailing arguments such as
- Mathematics and mathematics education are racist.
- Mathematics curriculum and instruction is not culturally responsive.
- Tests are bad. Grades are bad. Homework is bad.
- Mathematics and basic mathematics facts are not engaging.
Not to mention all of the preexisting stereotypes and phobias that have long served as barriers to effective instruction and student learning in mathematics.
And in many ways, mathematics is the easiest subject, where 2+2 yesterday, today, and tomorrow will equal 4. What about reading, social studies, and the sciences? What about the arts?
There may be grains of truth in all of those arguments about mathematics and even in the math phobic stereotypes. The reality, however, is that although each of those arguments are complex and require a nuanced response, educational policy tends to be reduced to sharp contrasts of black and white, even when the policy itself initially allows room for the fifty shades of gray that might be necessary.
I fear that student-centered education, student engagement, student agency has the potential to be the latest example of bad education policy reduced to a false dichotomy. Or are those three separate examples. I’m not sure and that is a big part of the problem.
I have to admit that I am struggling a bit with the concept of student agency, even more than I have struggled with the student’s role as a central component of formative assessment.
I read that student agency must not be confused with concepts like student voice, student choice, or student autonomy. Of course, the same source tells me that there is no universal agreement on the definition of student agency. Given that fact and the natural inclination of all of us in education (from measurement specialists to classroom teachers) is to choose our own definitions, there are so many ways that this adventure into student agency could go wrong.
Worst-case scenario, as I see it, is that “student agency” becomes another excuse for certain overwhelmed educators and policymakers to throw in the towel on trying to determine what should be included in content standards, achievement standards, and the curriculum. It’s up to the students. It’s out of our hands.
Far-fetched, perhaps.
On the other hand, what is public education policy in the US if not a collection of worst-case responses to worst-case scenarios? We didn’t reach the point we’re at today in public education policy with people making the best decisions possible, no matter how well-intentioned and well-informed they might have been.
What is the best-case scenario for instruction and public education policy centered around student agency?
As a starting point, I’ll take a scenario in which students understand that 2+2=4 and possess the skills needed to be mindful of people and institutions trying to convince them that 2+2=5?
That’s solid ground where I can find my footing.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Embrace the Absurd 