Battleground Schools - Entry Ticket
The article about Battleground Schools didn't give me 3 'stops' but rather just one big 'Aha, now I understand' moment!
As one of your older students, I have lived much of the change since the late 1960's. I remember the new math, and the saying that the new math is old math, and is really a sham (I believe the word I heard back then was 'bunk'). But I can appreciate how FEAR would have driven the push for putting more structure back into the math curriculum. Where they (math content designers, the government?) failed, as the article discusses, is in the communication to the teachers and the parents of why this system was necessary. Also a result of the fear, was a lack of broader thinking of what they want to achieve. But perhaps this is your point - that the conservative and progressive ideas has been around for a while and is the heart of the issue.
Another interesting component to me is the thinking about teaching fundamental math concepts in a strict teaching environment. This technique didn't help the students in their understanding of the greater meaning behind the math. This breeds rather shallow thinkers. I'm relatively certain that I learned from this method of a rote equation/solution exercise. It also has the effect that we still suffer from today which is a very narrow group of people who want to continue to study math or even to apply math in a broader context. Math was/is elitist as you said. No wonder the US/Canada continue to struggle to recruit student in STEM areas (which seems to be the latest push, not unlike the push after Sputnik?).
And that leads me to my final question, why don't girls tend to stick with math as much as boys? If the typical math student is still the egghead, nerd, absent minded professor, but we truly adopt the progressive mindset in teaching math, will more women move into the field? Perhaps then instead of math breeding 'eggheads', it could breed 'confident, bright, insightful' women.
I thoroughly enjoyed this article. Thank you for sharing!
As one of your older students, I have lived much of the change since the late 1960's. I remember the new math, and the saying that the new math is old math, and is really a sham (I believe the word I heard back then was 'bunk'). But I can appreciate how FEAR would have driven the push for putting more structure back into the math curriculum. Where they (math content designers, the government?) failed, as the article discusses, is in the communication to the teachers and the parents of why this system was necessary. Also a result of the fear, was a lack of broader thinking of what they want to achieve. But perhaps this is your point - that the conservative and progressive ideas has been around for a while and is the heart of the issue.
Another interesting component to me is the thinking about teaching fundamental math concepts in a strict teaching environment. This technique didn't help the students in their understanding of the greater meaning behind the math. This breeds rather shallow thinkers. I'm relatively certain that I learned from this method of a rote equation/solution exercise. It also has the effect that we still suffer from today which is a very narrow group of people who want to continue to study math or even to apply math in a broader context. Math was/is elitist as you said. No wonder the US/Canada continue to struggle to recruit student in STEM areas (which seems to be the latest push, not unlike the push after Sputnik?).
And that leads me to my final question, why don't girls tend to stick with math as much as boys? If the typical math student is still the egghead, nerd, absent minded professor, but we truly adopt the progressive mindset in teaching math, will more women move into the field? Perhaps then instead of math breeding 'eggheads', it could breed 'confident, bright, insightful' women.
I thoroughly enjoyed this article. Thank you for sharing!
Wonderful commentary Sue!! I was also a kid in the late 60s learning the ‘New Math’ — I actually quite enjoyed it too ...
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