{"id":113131,"date":"2025-11-05T18:54:34","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T00:54:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=113131"},"modified":"2025-11-05T18:54:34","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T00:54:34","slug":"113131","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=113131","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/math-teacher-says-he-was-called-ideologically-violent-for-supporting-standardized-testing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Math teacher says he was called \u2018ideologically violent\u2019 for supporting standardized testing<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-heading wp-block-classifai-key-takeaways__title\"><strong>Key Takeaways<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-classifai-key-takeaways__content\">\n<ul>\n<li>The author recounts his college experiences facing backlash for supporting standardized testing and watching a professor get berated for her response to the George Floyd incident.<\/li>\n<li>His book, which critiques the ideologically driven focus of higher education, recently won a Maxy Award.<\/li>\n<li>Yellow Heights, a former software engineer turned teacher, emphasizes the need for objective assessment in education.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>While studying at one of the \u201ctop\u201d higher education institutions in the U.S., a new author recalls how he was described as \u201cideologically violent\u201d for arguing in favor of standardized testing.<\/p>\n<p>This incident and other concerns about diversity, equity, and inclusion in education inspired him to write a book.<\/p>\n<p>His book \u201cUnbalanced: Memoir of an Immigrant Math Teacher,\u201d written under the pen name \u201cYellow Heights,\u201d raises concerns about the ideologically-driven focus of higher education.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnbalanced\u201d was released on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Unbalanced-Memoir-Immigrant-Math-Teacher-ebook\/dp\/B0FG7TKX13\">Amazon<\/a>\u00a0and recently won a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.maxyawards.com\/2025-new\">Maxy Award,<\/a>\u00a0an honor for indie and self-published books. The book also is partially available for free on the author\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/yellowheights.substack.com\/\">substack<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Yellow Heights describes himself as a \u201cformer climate researcher, software engineer, investment manager, and high school math teacher.\u201d He also is a first-generation immigrant from China and father of two.\u00a0He writes under a penname and requested anonymity due to concerns about political and job discrimination due to his views.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis book recounts his Kafkaesque experiences at education school, where he was labeled a white supremacist simply for asking questions,\u201d according to the book\u2019s Amazon page. \u201cHe shares firsthand accounts of teaching math at a public and a private school, offering a panoramic view of the issues surrounding wokeness, coddling, and the lack of accountability in education.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The College Fix\u00a0<\/em>spoke on the phone recently with Yellow Heights about his book, his experiences going back to college to become a teacher, and his views of the current American education system.<\/p>\n<p>After working as a software engineer and manager at Microsoft, he said he decided to go back to college in the late 2010s to become a math teacher. Although he did not name the school, he said it was one of the top 10 education institutions in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>Yellow Heights said he wanted to teach math because \u201cI just take a great joy in seeing other people learning math and find math interesting. I want to basically make more people see the beauty of math and also the practical side of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Around 2020, his experiences at college grew increasingly concerning.<\/p>\n<p>Once, he said he and a fellow classmate asked some \u201clearning related questions\u201d only to end up \u201cbeing labeled white supremacists by the instructor and the students.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In another case, after the George Floyd protests, he said one \u201cvery kind, very well intentioned teacher\u201d encouraged the students to continue class after giving them about 20 minutes to mourn \u2014 \u201cand she was attacked. She was accused of lacking empathy at all and she was made to cry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another incident occurred when Yellow Heights defended standardized testing. \u201cI didn\u2019t say it\u2019s perfect. I just said we probably need some objective assessment of learning outcomes and we can improve it rather than just say it\u2019s \u2026 evil itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In response, the author said he was called \u201cideologically violent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>As for how he would like to change the education system, Yellow Heights said, \u201cI see three main issues with education right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first one is ideology\u2026I learned very few things about how to teach, but every day I was taught how to be an equity teacher,\u201d he told\u00a0<em>The Fix.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe second one that I see is there\u2026is almost a culture of fragility for students. It\u2019s an imbalance between supporting students and also challenging them,\u201d the author said, adding that teachers can become \u201cafraid to challenge\u201d students.<\/p>\n<p>The third issue is \u201ca lack of accountability\u201d for \u201cstudent learning outcomes.\u201d Teachers assess students themselves but lack access to outside assessment, like standardized test scores or previous grades, he said.<\/p>\n<p>At first, Yellow Heights wasn\u2019t planning to write a book. He penned some essays he \u201cdidn\u2019t really publish\u201d because, as he told\u00a0<em>The Fix<\/em>, \u201cI was still planning to hold on to the teaching career.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On his decision to self-publish, he told\u00a0<em>The Fix:<\/em>\u00a0\u201cThe traditional publishers I contacted all turned me down. I understand\u2026the industry is not doing well\u2026[and] I have no prior credentials or experiences. Also, some seem to take issue with the topic I\u2019m writing about. It\u2019s rather sensitive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The author shared more information about his writing process. \u201cI was trained in a lot of subjects \u2014 engineering, economics, geography, \u2026 education \u2014 but I was not trained in writing and also English is not even my first language so writing the book hasn\u2019t been very easy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut once I decide to write it, I learn as I do \u2026 With both of my careers, I was learning while I was doing and I was doing very, very well. In fact, that\u2019s kind of a signature of my career\u2026I\u2019ve never had a computer science degree but I was working very well at Microsoft on software engineering \u2026 I think learning is really something that stimulates me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yellow Heights took writing courses, hired \u201cseveral professional editors,\u201d and revised his book based on the feedback of friends and \u201ca very large body of beta readers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt took me one year to finish the book mostly and one year to really revise it,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 I think it\u2019s actually a good thing [it took so long]. If I rushed it, it wouldn\u2019t be as good.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The book was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Unbalanced-Memoir-Immigrant-Math-Teacher\/dp\/1966074476\/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0\">endorsed<\/a>\u00a0by two scholars\u2014Sarah Williams who serves as director at Sophie Hicks Agency and is a faculty member of the Columbia Publishing Course at Oxford University, Exeter College, and Wenli Li, an economist and lecturer at Princeton University.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding the Maxy Award, the author said it \u201cgave me a lot of pride and also it\u2019s an affirmation as well and encouragement because I\u2019ve written from a unique perspective as an immigrant\u2026[and] I\u2019ll sometimes wonder if my perspective is not widely shared\u2026by an audience outside of my immediate community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlso, I think the book has been selling very well\u2026I was very proud that some of those friends who were not even very close to me after reading the book\u2026[became] such strong advocates.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He shared a story about one teacher who wrote a positive review of his book, which she prefaced with: \u201cI wanted to write a bad review and I wanted to stop reading this several times because the tone was so sharp\u2026I\u2019ve been a teacher all my life\u2026I believe it\u2019s a very good book and I recommend to\u2026study it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for what\u2019s next, Yellow Heights hopes to become a teacher again. He currently is battling some health issues.<\/p>\n<p>And \u201cI think I may write another book,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Math teacher says he was called \u2018ideologically violent\u2019 for supporting standardized testing Key Takeaways The author recounts his college experiences facing backlash for supporting standardized testing and watching a professor get berated for her response to the George Floyd incident. His book, which critiques the ideologically driven focus of higher education, recently won a Maxy &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=113131\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-education-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113132,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113131\/revisions\/113132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}