After a debate about access and equity, the class moved from race to gender. We watched a video that I have to say I drew all the wrong messages from.

The video gives the uninitiated a good idea of progressive educators' favorite way of implementing the "heterogenous" classroom, as practiced at an East Bay high school. All work is group work, with each group getting at least one strong math student. Students are given an in-class assignment. They are given no assistance from the teacher, who by philosophy and training considers herself just another learner in the classroom. All the teacher does is walk by periodically and randomly demand an explanation from one of the group members. If the group member can explain it, all members of the group get an A+. If the group member can't explain it, the group gets a 0.

Understand, these problems aren't terribly complicated. The strong math student knows how to do the work before seeing it. The weakest kids don't have a clue. So the real work occurs not by the teacher, oh, say, doing her job, but by the strong math student who has to spend a ton of time explaining a very simple math problem effectively to students who actual teachers haven't managed to teach. And then they will all get an A+.

We see part one of the video, in which an African American girl giggles her way nervously through a non-explanation. The Hispanic girl sitting next to her gives supportive pats as the the teacher grills her, but the pats don't help. The two boys (one white, one black) are sitting on the opposite side of the table in stony silence, clearly wanting to be anywhere but here, watching this girl's humiliation.

So after the teacher says "You still need to explain it, so I'll come back in a few minutes. Be prepared", our instructor stops the video and explains that no one actually fails these assignments--the teacher just keeps coming back until the kid can explain it or the bell rings.

We are asked for our thoughts. The prevailing spoken view was that the boys were unsympathetic and even cruel, that the other girl in the group was warm and supportive, that the girl being interrogated had been let down by the boys and that there were all sorts of equity and access issues revealed. This is why girls don't do well in math and drop out!

Me: "Man, I didn't see that at all. The girl was trying to giggle her way out of a question, the boys were embarrassed. They're high school boys. Why are they any more responsible for the failure to answer than the other girl is? Does backpatting give her a pass?"

"Well, no, but wouldn't you rather be with someone supportive than two guys just staring at you?"

"But we're talking about before the backpatting. All three of the others failed equally at explaining it to her, if that's to be called failure."

"That's the point," says the class leader. "Learning requires everyone's participation and knowledge, and if one of the group fails, then everyone has failed."

I bite back a comment. We return to the video for part 2.

The teacher returns, the girl prattles off an explanation. The teacher asks a question, the girl doesn't know the answer.

"Why did you say that it was 10?"

"Because they told me to!" the girl responds, pointing to the boys, who are now not only wishing they were far away, but seriously annoyed at the girl for ratting them out. The African American boy breaks in and tries to explain, revealing that he doesn't know how to do the problem any more than she does, and the teacher smacks him and the other boy down hard, for sins unknown. It's all done very mildly, but it's pretty clear that the teacher is evening out the girl's misery by making the boys responsible for the girl.

Some of my classmates felt sorry for the girl, felt the teacher had treated the boys with the righteous contempt they deserved, and were stunned that I thought the girl had betrayed the boys by telling on them.

"Besides, maybe they deserved it," someone said.

Today, for the first time, I can identify a component of progressive education that I explicity refect and say "Not in a million years".

Not in a million years will I ever make my students' grades in any way dependent on their ability to explain math to their peers. That's my job.

And what this has to do with social justice is more than I can figure.