A Superintendent of a Utah school district called parents that opposed TERC Investigations "Extremists" at a city council meeting. TERC has been used since 2000 at these 46 schools. Parental objections appear to have grown to a deafening roar over the years. Now the School system is backing off of TERC, allowing it to "supplement" and giving schools the option of using a more traditional approach. It sounds like different schools will be able to choose different programs or a combination of text books.
I wonder how much they pay their Superintendent? Has he never heard that ad hominem attacks are the weakest defense one could muster?
I should mention that the extremist comment was said about parents that didn't like the "balanced" approach that the schools were going to move toward. Parents were insistent that rather than balance, a coherent traditional curriculum would be preferable.
ReplyDeleteoh boy, calling parents names -- that's gonna work
ReplyDeleteyes, my own district is going to opt for "balance" and declare victory
ReplyDeleteI think
I can't even hope for balance at this point. I think if they opted for balance, I might declare victory.
ReplyDeleteI've looked closely at the issue of supplementing TERC with a traditional text in our district... and I think individual teachers may be skilled enough to weave TERC discussions into a traditional course. But only individuals. On a large scale the schools will run into the same problem that KTM parents have experienced: it's best to teach your child using a single coherent curriculum. One sequential mathematical narrative.
ReplyDeleteIf a teacher doesn't understand the mathematical structure of a TERC class discussion (e.g. common denominators or the distributive property or...) then she won't be able to bring the discussion to mathematical closure for her students, and the class period has been wasted when she reverts to a traditional text or worksheets the following day.
If the teacher does understand the math, then she can lead the children out of the woods to end the discussion. And she will be qualified and motivated to mix TERC with a traditional curriculum. She can read from more than one mathematical narrative and use one to illustrate the other.
BTW did you know that TERC is coming out with a new, improved version of Investigations? Yes, Susan Jo Russell has "re-visioned" it. Although she is unhappy that teachers were too stupid to engage in ongoing learning by collaborating with her beloved curriculum materials to teach mathematics as she originally "en-visioned," she is happy to try one more time to set them straight with an increasingly elaborate script to read from. In her desperate attempt to reinvent a reliable and general teaching algorithm.
I'm not sure it's going to be efficient, though.
I bet the teacher's guide ends up looking like a textbook someday.
I can't even hope for balance at this point. I think if they opted for balance, I might declare victory.
ReplyDeleteActually, that's a good point.
He called them extremist because they were advocating only one textbook (Saxon) rather than a main textbook with supplementation, or so the story goes. Solution: Use Saxon and Singapore; that'll shut up the critics!
ReplyDeletethen she won't be able to bring the discussion to mathematical closure for her students, and the class period has been wasted when she reverts to a traditional text or worksheets the following day
ReplyDeleteabsolutely
You have to be VERY good to be able to pull from disparate sources and make it work.
I think I'm starting to be able to do that, a little.
This week, preteaching & reteaching linear equations, I've felt like I "knew what to do next."
For one of the first times I sorted through my five billion resouces and could "see" what I needed to use.
I don't know if I was right, but the fact that I'm beginning to feel a bit more sure-footed is cool.
The other great thing is that since I've learned this material so recently myself -- and since I taught it to myself -- I remember quite clearly which aspects were confusing and why.
My own confusions seem to map neatly onto Christopher's confusions; in other words, the elements of the topic that caused me to stumble also caused him to stumble.
Solution: Use Saxon and Singapore; that'll shut up the critics!
ReplyDeleteOK, now you're starting to think like them.
That's good.
I mean it.
ReplyDeletegood + bad / 2 = mediocre
ReplyDeleteSounds like our district. They're shoving the word "balanced" down our throats.
ReplyDeleteAnd its meaning keeps changing. Sometimes it means individualized plus group work. Sometimes it means conceptual understanding plus drill.
Sometimes it means teachers teaching plus parents teaching.
Yes they've even worked parents supplementing into the word "balanced."
It's downright frightening how they're manipulating people with the language.
They haven't called us extremists yet, at least not to our faces, but that's how we're being treated.
I left a comment on a different KTM post about how constructivism keeps changing its definition. Kind of handy if you don't want accountability.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I just don't know how the schools/districts can expect to teach to standards and have all parents fully involved. Many parents (I'm one of them) would have a difficult time learning the New Math methods and be good enough at actually teaching it. Ugh.