Ramal Lamar: Budding Mathematicians in Our Community

Budding Mathematicians In Our Community

Ramal Lamar is a philosopher in residence at Berkeley High's East Campus, aka B-Tech, the continuation school for those African and Latin American students who are often pushed out of Berkeley High, mainly for truancy and the social isolation associated with overt institutional racism taking place at the larger campus. The main myth of BTECH students are that they are full discipline problems, often are mainly clients of the criminal justice system. In this set up, the big high school is the house, BTECH is the field, and Ramal's classroom is 'part of the underground railroad'.

Ramal is highly qualified to teach mathematics (all levels) and philosophy.

He has the unique ability to teach these young people to love and appreciate the math associated with their everyday life. For him the process of mathematics education is more of a sharing amongst age groups. He shares his knowledge with his students, and likewise the students share their knowledge with him. The difficult task for both Ramal and his students is how to apply the original mathematics that they learn and develop in class to solving everyday community and social problems.

One of his first students was shot up eight times and lost a lung. Ramal visited him at Highland to drop off math work for him to do, since Ramal knew he could do it. He eventually graduated and went off to college out of state.




Another student, who Ramal considers to be gifted, successfully met the challenge to construct a geometric proof of the law of the hypotenuse (the so called Pythagorean theorem). He was awarded $25 dollars.




Then there was the group of young brothers who used to hang out after school doing geometry!




Another student, who aspires to be an actor, was able to prove why the square root of two was irrational using the the logical principle of contradiction. This student, who did not have the best attendance, had to present his proof to the principal, the history teacher and defend it in front of the master teacher Rev. Aaron E. Ward (one of Ramal's mentors) to demonstrate mastery. He in addition also constructed a seven sided pyramid as an extra credit challenge problem.




Another student who barely attended his other classes, daily went to Ramal's class to get a 'math problem'; while this student was considered special, he successful solved precalculus problems using sum (sigma) and product (pi) operators.




These examples are of note because if these were students at the big high school, they would be getting rewards for such efforts and probably scholarship offers, lt alone advanced placement credit; but most of this takes place with no input or acknowledgment of the world outside of Ramal's class.




When Ramal teaches the rules of logic, or clear thinking, when doing truth tables, he always relates the material to the legal practice, showing the importance of conditional sentences, testing their truth or falsity and showing how judges and lawyers use truth tables (tautologies) to determine who goes to jail and who gets to go home.




In advanced algebra class the students had to do an oral final, where each student had to derive the quadratic formula from the general quadratic equation and explain all of their reasoning. The class audience graded each presenter, and many graduates who were in that class says that it was one of the hardest courses they ever took, because their colleagues graded them so critically.

One recent graduate said, “Mr. Lamar, even though sometimes you be cussing I really learned math in your class, because of how you be breaking it down, I even told my mama!”




In many instances the teaching goes beyond the classroom, into the community, where the students are to identify living mathematics. This shows up in nature, architecture and even human and social relations. Also, there has been those instances when students have paired up with elders in the community to learn the 'living mathematics', where mathematics and philosophy weave together seamlessly. Storytelling seems also to be a central part of building up a mathematical mythology to encourage students to develop their own mathematics. Like the time when it was shown etymologically that sports is synonymous with mathematics, and students were, during football seasons, challenged to develop unstoppable defensive and/or offensive plays, and test them out. The best plays are still posted on the classroom wall for display.

Ramal defends mathematics pedagogy as a form of moral development for young people.

He was willing to purchase a car for a student if he excelled in class, but he told the young man if he purchased the car, mathematically speaking, since he didn't have a job, how was he going to buy gas, insurance, registration?



The indigenous foundations of mathematics are expressed in his presentation of mathematics: all students are introduced to Djhuty, the character in old Afrikan folklore who invented numbers, letters, algebra, calculus, dice, chess, checkers, backgammon and cards. The games are also introduced in the curriculum as warm ups where students engage in hands on problem solving as a precursor to class and homework assignments. The students are also introduced to the connection between ancient American, African and Asian mathematics. The foundation of his whole curriculum is Euclid's Elements , the oldest textbook from Africa that is the basis for modern geometry, and number theory, two of the seven liberal arts. In the Euclidean tradition students may be asked to construct complex geometrical objects using only ruler, compass and protractor, as well as write out detail proofs based on the rules of logic.








Clearly, his role as teacher often morphs into the surrogate father for the many students who come from single family homes, foster homes or who are homeless. He must address their many needs, sometimes give them money for food and transportation, attend juvenile court in their behalf, give them guidance as they grapple with sexual identity issues. This is where the living mathematics in the form community collaboration can solve such problems.

Ramal, a youthful looking academic completing his Master's thesis in Logic and planning to obtain his PhD, can easily be mistaken for one of his students. But he is well grounded and disciplined to wear the father persona, to be concerned enough to engage the parents of those students who have them.

The teacher is a product of Los Angeles Black Independent schools, so his technique is a mix of math and African philosophy, which he would say are one. Philosophy is logic or math, a way to seriously or scientifically solve problems. We praise and congratulate Ramal for his dual role as teacher and father to the young men and women in the Bay.

The Post Newspaper Group has agreed to aid and assist Ramal in the establishment of an Art, Math, Science and Technology Institute operated by Ramal and his colleagues in the above fields. The PNG will purchase a thousand dollars worth of Euclid's classic math text for the Institute. A person who wishes to remain anonymous contributed materials for teaching a host of science projects, including Math, Chemistry, Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus, Geometry, along with a collection of DVDs on African consciousness. Hip hop artists have agreed to contribute time and money to the project.