Counted Out Viewing with the Uppers
Last Wednesday, the Uppers students brought snacks and pillows into the All School Room to watch the documentary Counted Out. We started our viewing by talking about two potentially new vocabulary words: “gerrymandering” and “parole”. You, like many of the students, may be wondering what those words have to do with math. As it turns out, a lot. Over the course of 90 minutes, students watched as math determined how votes were counted, how likely someone was to get out of jail, and how people can use data to manipulate our perceptions.
After our viewing, we met in groups to discuss what we had seen and students were left with a myriad of different impressions. "I had always thought of math as being something that just was fact and couldn't be used for good or bad. But now I'm realizing that people can manipulate data and numbers to give people only part of the story. We have to always ask about what isn't being told, too." In the documentary, they showed examples of how saying, “only 1%” or “the probability doubles” only gives us half a picture. We hear those phrases and are led to believe that they give us all this information we need, without actually giving us the whole picture. Students discussed how without a sense of math literacy you may not question such statistics and take them at face value, limiting your actual understanding.
Another discussion point that came up in many group discussions was the striking image of barriers blocking people out of certain situations. The documentary used a visual of a closing wall, letting some people pass and leaving many behind.The barriers were showing how only a percentage of students at specific grade levels were proficient in math based on standardized test scores. This really showed how math can be a gatekeeper of success and how easy it is to be left behind if you don’t meet those specific benchmarks of success. Students discussed how nervous this made them feel about falling behind and how impossible it looked to break through those barriers. The documentary did show examples of people who had seen themselves as “not math people” pushing themselves and being able to be successful in math, but the message remained clear, some things are not open to you without a certain understanding of math. "My plan was to make sure I would just get a job that doesn't need math, but now I'm realizing that that doesn't exist. I'm thinking about math so differently now."
Students also left with many questions, such as “If there are so many problems with basing a society around math, why would we choose math as the basis for our society?” This student felt that creating barriers with math felt unjust.. Another student asked "If algorithms control if you are in prison and algorithms control social media, are we prisoners of social media?" As our students lives become more and more centered around social media, this is an important question for them to be asking and discussing.
An excellent litmus test of how engaged students are in a given activity is how many students leave to go use the bathroom or get a drink of water. During this 90 minute screening, only 3 students got up to go to the bathroom during the entire viewing. Students were not only engaged, but saw this as something that needs to be talked and learned about. "Things have to change," was one student’s takeaway. If you were on the fence about coming to the after school showing of Counted Out, there are many uppers that would support you going this Thursday night. If you’d like more information, I suggest checking out their website or talk to your local Upper about their experience with this film.
