Above: If “Math is power” in modern society, then what happens when so many members of society give up on understanding it? Educators are invited to watch a much buzzed about film covering those issues and share their thoughts with colleagues afterwards. (image of promotional poster)
St. Mark’s School is issuing a community invitation, with a special call out to educators. A week from Sunday, they will be screening a documentary that “has been garnering a great deal of attention in the education world, but it isn’t freely available to the public.”
The film Counted Out focuses on “a crises of our time” and the need to seriously address issues in math education. The screening will be followed by an informal discussion.
The school invites:
In the 21st century, math impacts so many aspects of our lives— and our democracy. Counted Out asks us to consider how we as educators of any subject think about math education and numeracy in our schools.
Because the movie has limited availability, the school has arranged this screening for its faculty and is inviting other educators and interested community members to join them.
While the event is free, it does require tickets. (To book tickets to the screening, click here and use the code “JoinUs”. Children under 18 may attend if accompanied by an adult.)
Here is a trailer for the film:
The event is on Sunday, March 30th at 2:00 pm. (Again, you will need tickets to enter the screening in the school’s Class of 1945 Hall in the Putnam Family Arts Center.) The movie is 90 minutes followed by discussion and refreshments.
The documentary is by the producer of Race to Nowhere and Beyond Measure. On Instagram, filmmakers promote:
Counted Out investigates the crises of our time—political polarization, inequity, a pandemic, and climate change—through an unexpected lens: math.
This month (in honor of Pi Day), filmmakers have been promoting for communities everywhere to come together to “reimagine math”:
This is a movement that celebrates math as a tool for participation, understanding, and opportunity. Through screenings and conversations, we’ll spark ideas and inspire action that resonates far beyond March.
On the movie website, filmmakers further explain the “Math is Power” tagline in promotional posters:
In the 21st century, fueled by technology, data, and algorithms, math determines who has the power to shape our world. . .
In our current information economy, math is everywhere. The people we date, the news we see, the influence of our votes, the candidates who win elections, the education we have access to, the jobs we get—all of it is underwritten by an invisible layer of math that few of us understand, or even notice.
But whether we know it or not, our numeric literacy—whether we can speak the language of math—is a critical determinant of social and economic power.
Through a mosaic of personal stories, expert interviews, and scenes of math transformation in action, Counted Out shows what’s at risk if we keep the status quo. Do we want an America in which most of us don’t consider ourselves “math people”? Where math proficiency goes down as students grow up? Or do we want a country where everyone can understand the math that undergirds our society—and can help shape it?
The film is dedicated to Bob Moses, the civil rights leader and MacArthur genius who saw math access as the civil rights issue of our time, and whose work we follow in some of the last filmed interviews of his life.
