A comment from Dr. Pion led me to this CBS Evening News story.
"Reform Math" Leaves Some Perplexed
Wow, a national news network feature about the problems with reform math! Unfortunately, since CBS is lagging in third place and since nobody that I know under the age of 60 watches network news, we probably all missed it.
I’m not sure, but the fact that this made national news seems significant. Is there any way for this story to be a springboard to spur additional momentum for anti-reform advocacy?
Everday Math is featured. One new fact I learned is that about a quarter of schools are teaching reform math. I had thought it was more.
My favorite comment: “Somehow I just can't see the Nuns at my school going for this type of math.” As a product of Catholic elementary school, this made me chuckle.
Check it out.
I like this comment:
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine a math teacher taking his 30 kids on a field trip and does a head count on the way back and only counts 29 and decideds that is close enough?
Thanks, Tex, for posting this.
ReplyDeleteA brief, two-minute report can only touch upon the subject without depth and breadth. For example, the issue of algorithms is left out completely. But hopefully it is a trigger for more in-depth study for some. Some of the comments at the CBS site
show ignorance about the origin of fuzzy math, like blaming NCLB. They need to read David Klein's superb brief history of math teaching http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/AHistory.html
It would also be great if 60 Minutes could do a segment. Maybe they need some encouragement.
I was particularly struck by the commment of one Amy Dillard, identified as co-author of Everyday Mathematics. She is urging that we jettison real math to prepare for some not even vague jobs that we don't even know are going to exist. This is a hell of a basis for abandoning the teaching of real math. It's amazing that anyone takes them seriously.
Here her comment:
“We're preparing kids now for jobs that we don't even know are going to exist, and we can't be teaching them the same mathematics that we did years and years ago, we really have to prepare them for the workforce that they'll be headed to,” says Dillard.
“We're preparing kids now for jobs that we don't even know are going to exist"
ReplyDeleteGuess what, we have always been doing that! Who, even as late as lets say the early 1950's, would have guessed how many aerospace engineers we would need in the late 1950's and beyond. Each of those engineers was educated at a time when they nor anyone else knew what kind of job they would be performing. They were highly educated in the fundamentals of math, science and engineering and thus were able to use that knowledge to tackle the problems associated with space flight.
Engineers and scientists in the 21st century need to know algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, differential equations etc. Just as engineers in the 20th century did.
If you do not know the fundamentals you cannot innovate!