I certainly stopped more than three times throughout reading this piece by Susan from 'Battleground Schools' (2008). I've selected the three most pondering pauses I took.
1: Politics. Before reading this piece I thought that math education over the past century has moved in one direction from conservative to progressive approaches. This is based on my knowledge of my grandparents' and parents' experiences with math education. However, I understand that political stances have consistently dictated a flux between focuses on what mathematics is and what the place of mathematics in society is.
2: Math phobia. Unlike other traditional subjects in k-12 education, math has a rather notorious reputation. Society thinks that people can either do math or they cannot. Additionally, those who do math are nerds, mad scientists, or other caricatures that lack social skills. In this reading, I considered how curriculum in math is decided by politics for teachers who may not understand what they now need to teach, which can promote such phobias in students and further propagate the fears of math into society. I hope these days are behind us.
3: New Math. Despite adopting a few progressive standpoints, proponents of New Math were still highly conservative. I wonder if New Math would have prevailed if it adopted more progressive characteristics. I'm a fan of Tom Lehrer (who turned 92 this April) through the song, 'Lobachevsky', and I have a better understanding of the song 'New Math' through reading about the historical context. It's fascinating that the space race between the USA and USSR (in Sputnik 1957) motivated these radical changes in math education to the point where parents could not help their children with their elementary school homework.
I enjoyed reading about the history of math education from the beginning
of the 20th century through to the beginning of the 21st century. I have a better grasp of the conflicts that exist in math education and I am curious to see how it continues to evolve throughout my teaching career.
Hi Jeff,
ReplyDeleteI find your first point very interesting. Through the year, the way we teach math is determined by political decision that was made. How do you think we can take politics out of education and curriculum decision?
Also, I do think that every curriculum change is hard because there is always people that like it and other that do not. If the new math curriculum would have been implement more progressively it would have been easier to be accepted.
Hi Jennifer, thank you for your comment and that is a great question. I think it is very challenging to decouple curricula in any subject from politics. I wonder if these effects are most apparent in math education. I personally subscribe to the progressive ideologies presented in the right column of the table in the paper, so I am optimistic for a future in education where regardless of political incentives, both ends of the political spectrum support the ideologies of progressive education. Do you think it is possible for politicians at either end of the political spectrum to agree on a progressive ideology for math education?
ReplyDeleteInteresting reflection and discussion -- thanks!
ReplyDelete