Jamie Mitchell is an award-winning Canadian math teacher.
He recently was involved in a Twitter spat over an old Tweet of his.
It's not just idiots. It's well-funded activist idiots with an agenda. Aufhebung der Kultur. "Decentering whiteness," "decentering the Western world," "decolonizing the curriculum." All abolishing the culture for a neo-Marxian "sublation" into "liberation." pic.twitter.com/3ayTmgq6tW
— James Lindsay, full varsity (@ConceptualJames) March 10, 2021
Zero that I'm aware of.
But I can look at my two apples and your two apples, imagine planting the seeds from those two apples, and growing a five new apple trees.— Jamie Mitchell (@realJ_Mitchell) March 10, 2021
People used to argue about the existence of "zero".
I think it's important to teach students that there are other ways to look at the world, outside of the the non-negotiated norms of the system we live in.
In certain arrangements 2 boxes plus 2 boxes can equal 5 boxes. pic.twitter.com/7GaWJZwGHk— Jamie Mitchell (@realJ_Mitchell) March 10, 2021
This is not wise or creative thinking. This is wrong. And what is worse it is wrong masquerading as clever.
The point is to make the wrong answer seem smart instead of stupid.
The problem, and this is purposeful, is to destroy the idea of math as an absolute science.
2+2=4 only for white supremacists who believe in very strict linear thinking
2+2=5 for Progressives who have the wisdom and clarity to see beyond very strict linear thinking.
What young child doesn’t want to be praised as being wise, open-minded, and clever?
Except that 2+2 must equal 4 and must always equal 4. The fundamental rules of math are the basis of all rational empirical derived knowlege.
It’s no coincidence that Venn diagram of people who say “2+2=5” and “men can get pregnant and women can have penises” is nearly a perfect circle.
The point is to be able to create a society in which the people are utterly unable to come to conclusions based on empirical reality.
George Orwell put it best:
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy.
This went from being dystopian fiction to actual award-winning education promoted by teachers.
This is the endarkenment.
But 3 + 1 equals 4 too…..
So this Canadian Math teacher is arguing in some circumstances “2+2=5” and then gives that little humorous graphic of squares as his example. Except he is being Completely disingenuous. In his example, it is still a system with rules. The rules are simply “count all possible squares”. In fact the entire problem is still a traditional math problem, but the QUESTION has been changed from “what is two plus two” to “how many possible squares, including combination squares, do you see”. What he is doing is really modifying the question without letting you know he modified the question, and by the way even in his modified question he is still using the same tradition white supremacist math rules. Wokeists do this all the time of modyfing the question or terms without telling you, such as changing the definition of racism to “power + privilege”, or including mean words in their definition of “violence”. If anything this is not a math problem, it’s Orwell’s problem of language and control of language that is the problem once again.
Mathematics is a means of communication — and what the clowns are doing is trying to obfuscate and confuse communication to make it harder for people to cooperate.
Meanwhile, the CCP is pushing STEM education in China. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Ow, ow, ow, ow, my poor brain.
This is like a schoolmate changing the rules of a game, (and then continuing to do so) when they’re losing.
Perhaps we can have him demonstrate his truth with a real world example. Put him in a truck whose weight requires 5 supports to cross a bridge. Even incentivize him with some sort of shiny prize on the other side. Show him that only four supports were used but that if you look at it one way they’re really 5. He should be willing to cross the bridge without concern.
If we can set up testing centers for this sort of thing we could remove a lot of the ideological dolts from circulation
My rebuttal to “facts are just a white male opinion” is: “Well then, step right up to the edge of the roof of this tall building. Now step forward and find out if gravity is just a matter of opinion.”
BUT 1+1 = 0
a=1 and b=1
a=b
a^2 = b^2
a^2 – b^2 = 0
(a-b)(a+b) = 0
Divide both sides by (a-b) and we get
((a-b)(a+b))/(a-b) = 0/(a-b)
(a-b) cancels on the left and we get
a+b = 0
substituted and we get
1 + 1 = 0
Proved.
Except I had to cheat to do it and had to wave hands to distract you from seeing it.
The rules of math are there to allow us to manipulate symbols in a consistent way. Changing the meaning of words, cheating (as I did above) are all games and not math. At best the “proof” above is good to tell us that you still have to abide by the rules.
They’re so close to making a valuable point. It’s absolutely important to make sure that the conceptual model you’re using lines up with whatever real-world phenomena you’re trying to model. It may well be that simple arithmetic addition is not the right model. That’s fine.
The problem is at point you’re not doing addition anymore. The answer may very well be 5, but if it is, the question wasn’t 2 + 2.
But no, lets just redefine an addition to mean whatever the hell we want. That way, when it is an appropriate model, it will be squishy, vague, and completely useless. While we’re at it, lets go hammer some nails with a circular saw. Really, if you think about it, hammering nails is no different from cutting wood once you remove the toxic whiteness.
If memory serves, 2 + 2 = 4 was at one point used by people on the right as a short hand for objective reality exists, so of course addition had to be refuted by any means, no matter how disingenuous or destructive. These assholes, and say what you want about them they’re not stupid, took a hard left into crazytown just so they could dunk on the reactionary squares. What a waste.
The “we can make 2 + 2 = 5” thing is from Orwell’s 1984, and the point was totalitarians would redefine axiomatic truths just because they can. The most recent invocation was the non-woke pointing out that the woke will deny 2 + 2 = 4.
Which some of them immediately did. With sophistry and intentionally missing the point.
Basically, the wanna-be tyrants were offered a chance to show they weren’t totalitarians, and tripped over each other to show they were.
Unfortunately for that fake teacher, his answer is wrong for the way he recast the question. If you make the question “how many rectangular groups of boxes are there” the answer clearly is not 5 but 9.
But He Still Deserves that Gold Star Dang-nabit! Why you so Racist!
Try this crap with your income tax sometime and see how fast the IRS gets up in your grill.
Then again, maybe the current administration deserves it.
There are 4 lights!
“This is not wise or creative thinking. This is wrong. And what is worse it is wrong masquerading as clever.
The point is to make the wrong answer seem smart instead of stupid.”
That is it, right there.
This type of thing is OK on a funny “logic” quiz, or as an example of “looking at it another way.”
It has no place in math or sciences instruction.
And this is why plane engines fall off and bridges collapse.
“‘Oh, that was easy,’ says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”
-Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy