The Algebra Project

       

       Fast forward to 1982. The Algebra Project started when Bob Moses 8th grade daughter Maisha was not offered Algebra at Martin Luther King Elementary School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While Moses was completing his Ph.d at Harvard he was also ensuring that Maisha and his other three children knew their mathematics.  Reminiscent of Lucinda Todd, Bob Moses decided to do what he could do. Maisha, a full fledged teenager at this point was not interested in doing parallel math classes, one in school and one at home. The compromise was to take Algebra and let her dad come to school. Mary Lou Mehrling, who was Maisha’s math teacher although primarily a music teacher, agreed that Moses could teach Maisha in a corner of the classroom. It turned out three other students wanted to take Algebra, so the Algebra Project began.  Moses taught several years in this way allowed to do so by the receipt, also in 1982, of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” award which carried a stipend (Moses 95 – 97).

                Moses believes that every child can learn Algebra, and every child should learn Algebra. He contends Algebra is a gatekeeper to the technical and scientific jobs that require a higher level of math. To Moses, math literacy is a Civil Right; just as voting is a civil right. Technology has changed our economic system in much the same way the machines that picked cotton changed southern agriculture. To participate fully as a citizen with economic access mathematics is necessary, just as reading and writing are necessary. Furthermore, Moses acknowledges that math illiteracy affects poor people, Blacks and minorities included, more severely (Moses 11-14). Substantiating that opinion is the report by the U. S. Education Department that minority children across the country are shortchanged (USA today).

                Moses compares the Algebra Project to the campaign in Mississippi in the early 1960’s for voter rights.  The Algebra Project requires a culture change just like the voter registration campaign required a change in Black sharecropper thought. They had to see the value of the vote. As a society we have to value and expect math literacy. It is not ok to say some students just “can’t do the math”.  Moses’s idea is that the Algebra Project requires community organizing just as the civil rights movement required community organizing. It is necessary for the demand for math literacy, e.g. algebra, come from the families, the communities, the students. Moses’s work with the Algebra Project is to be the catalyst to generate that demand.  He does this student by student, by becoming part of the community, by engaging the teachers to find out how they think math should be taught.

                As one who ended up with a degree in mathematics I have seen the benefits of such an education, although I have only just now connected math and civil rights. Also, I really think, if I can do it, so can anyone else. Although I was able to learn from the standard textbooks and others would need a different method of instruction, it can and should be done. Moses and the rest of the Algebra Project staff have worked on ways to teach algebra that are based on real life experience. He likes to take students on field trips and then use symbols to describe the direction, distance and velocity of the trip. He reports that the children are delighted with their success, one child shouting “I can do this!” (Moses 101).

                In the Ella Baker tradition, the Algebra Project has networked with other organizations concerned with quality education. Information about these National Partners is available on the Algebra Project website. Of particular note is the Young People’s Project cofounded by Bob Moses son Omo Moses. These young people train more young people, high school and college students, to teach math to other young people.  As everyone agrees the young people have a way of relating to other young people making it possible to pass on the enthusiasm for math (Moses 181-184) The young people have adopted a slogan “Each One Teach One”, which was recently seen in a Kansas Star article about student Derrick Parker who teaches 4th grade boys in a program named “Each One Teach One”. The Kansas City Public Schools sponsor the program to have the older boys teach the younger boys the importance of education. Parker has a full scholarship next year to Martin Luther King’s alma mater Morehouse College (Williams).
To learn more click here: The Algebra Project

• Moses, Robert P, and Charles E. Cobb. Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights. Boston: Beacon Press, 2001. Print.
• Toppo, Greg. "Bleak picture for minority kids in public schools." USA Today. USA Today. 21 March 2014. Web. 3 May 2014.
• Williams, Mara Rose. “Star student Derrick Parker, Jr. wins three prestigious college scholarships”. KC Star 25 Apr. 2014. Print.