A documentary screening Monday at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley will take a look at math, how it’s taught, how the subject is approached and its power and necessity in the 21st century.
“Counted Out” will be shown starting at 6 p.m. in Lindou Auditorium in Michener Library on the UNC campus. Doors open at 5 p.m. The screening is free and open to the public. A discussion will be held after the film.
The film asserts that in a time “fueled by technology, data and algorithms, math determines who has the power to shape our world,” according to the “Counted Out” website, countedoutfilm.com.
More simply and practically, the film says math is the key to economic power, said UNC professor Jodie Novak. This idea is put forward by the late Robert Moses, an educator, civil rights activist and founder of the nonprofit The Algebra Project. The organization is interested in raising mathematical literacy.
The film was dedicated to Moses, who saw math access as the civil rights issue of our time, the documentary website said. Moses died in 2021. “Counted Out” is 91 minutes long and was released in December by director, producer and former Wall Street attorney Vicki Abeles.
“Not being able to engage in math and understand it as a problem-solving mechanism, and understanding the world, it really cramps people’s ability to access good-paying jobs,” Novak said. “It’s key to being able to sort out numbers and data that’s thrown at us.”
Novak said the film is effective in showing how math affects our everyday lives and “in very real ways.” One of those real examples centered on a woman who turned to education later in life to earn a higher salary. Math had long been a challenge for the woman to pursue her interest in nursing.
“An algorithm is out there that kept a guy in prison,” Novak said. “It’s an implied call to action. It’s not OK to have a society that is quantitatively illiterate.”
As a math professor who has worked with teachers for two decades and tried to show them how math goes beyond steps and procedure, Novak said the issues presented in the film proved to be frustrating.
The current stigma around math and a different approach to teaching dates to the 1950s and 1960s. Novak said then an increased desire to steer students into STEM subjects — science, technology, engineering and math — brought on by the space race led to a limited approach to instruction.
Those who benefited were students with an interest in math, rather than thinking about how to teach to a broad population, Novak said.
“It translated to people who were going to be math priests,” she added. “Math fundamentally makes sense. Unfortunately, the way it’s been taught, it’s rote and procedural, and we associated being good at math with being smart.”
