If We Talked About Other Subjects the Way We Talk About Math
Eight cards apply common attitudes about math (math people, innate gifts, gender myths, 'when will I use this,' drills, real-world relevance) to Spanish, history, sociology, biology, art, soccer, music and literature.
Content note: Satirizes gender stereotypes (history card).
Use this cartoon
Free for classrooms, worksheets, slides and other non-commercial use under CC BY-NC 4.0, with credit to Ben Orlin.
Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2015-01-01-if-we-talked-about-other-subjects-the-way-we-talk-about-math/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
[1] "Of course I'm failing Spanish! I'm just not a Spanish person. It's probably genetic; my parents aren't Spanish either."
[2] "Women just don't have the same natural ability for history as men. They're not wired to be historians." "Really? Why not?" "It's because of evolution. Our male ancestors thought more about the past, while females focused on the future."
[3] "Wow, she just has an innate gift for comparative sociology." "Innate? Doesn't that have to be taught?" "For some of us, maybe. But she's a natural sociologist."
[4] "Why do I have to learn the organelles of a eukaryotic cell?" "Jobs, of course. Who will hire you if you can't even identify a chloroplast?" "But I want to work construction." "Well, you'll certainly need mitochondria for that!"
[5] "Ugh, your painting doesn't look anything like the example I showed. If you want to be good at art, you've got to stick to procedures."
[6] "Today, I want you to run this passing drill another 60 times." "I hate soccer!" "Hey, nobody said soccer was supposed to be fun."
[7] "Yesterday, we learned the bass line. Today, we'll hear the piano." "When will we hear the whole song together?" "Oh, that's much too difficult! I might assign listening to the whole song as an optional challenge."
[8] "I figured out why you hated the last novel I assigned." "Because it was boring and confusing?" "No! Because it wasn't real enough. That's why our next book is 800 dense pages on supply chains in the automotive industry." "Can't we read Lord of the Rings?" "No, you'd hate that! It's not Real World!"