David Stocker's book on Maththatmatters is certainly quite interesting book to dissect. One thing that resonated me while reading his article is that "we should be using the language of mathematics to help students understand the real world of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, power and oppression", and not simply use things in real life to do or solve math. I think that is very true because, come to think of it, a lot of my middle school and high school math problems were about using real life examples to solve math; some may be impractical, but seems practical enough. For instance, as a popular internet meme says, "Only in math is it okay to have a person buying 1000 watermelons and not get judged." (very true!)
In this case, it is important to actually use math concepts and apply it to real life - to solve real-life problems that benefit the world. We should always be interested in asking questions, to challenge our brains and to think about things that "have real meanings", and only then can we gain deeper insights on how math can actually help us and the world around us. For this reason, I personally think that mathematics is connected to some form of social/environmental justice, one way or another, because we need math to reason the world. The link may be weak, but I feel that it is there. For instance, math, particularly probability and statistics can be effective in science and social research. Scientists may use math to find causation between smoking and cancer, between amount of sugar intake and diabetes. Math can also be used in business and law to see if companies can make profit by optimizing its operations while minimizing expenses. Math can be used for calculating insurance policies to recommend the appropriate policy for their clients. Math can also be used for calculating stocks so holders can have the acquired knowledge for stock options, and help them to forecast stock trends for profitable trading that is fair. Some of these topics, in my opinion, are connected to social justice one way or another.
The author may be right, "numbers only tell half-truth", since just by looking at numbers don't really tell us about anything. But, if we analyze those numbers in a given context, such as law, medicine, finance, or the society, they can mean so much more; it makes students and teachers wonder and think. And it is the responsibilities of a teacher to engage students with lessons that actually address concerns of social/environmental/global issues. As well, I think it can be beneficial for secondary class teaching because we need to have young kids think about these issues critically - to let them think about how math is such a broad field that doesn't just begin and end with calculating the area of a pizza box. To let them think critically about math as they transition from elementary to secondary level can potentially help them grow and develop ideas later in life (I'll never know what they are capable of!).
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