Battlegrounds School Response

This article talks about the two main stances in Mathematics Education. The two dichotomies are the Conservative approach and the Progressive approach. To keep it short, the Conservative method is what most people know of when they think math class, lectures, homework, memorization, tests and repeat. The Progressive approach is to have the students come to understand math, to see the patterns emerging from lived experiences and to stimulate problem solving skills.

In table M.1, one of the columns is what should drive curriculum design in public schooling. For Conservative it reads: for the masses, the need to do simple, practical calculations. For Progressive it reads: to expand learners’ modes of thought and develop flexible problem-solving abilities.

This article is pushing for the Progressive approach and lists complicating factors which are preventing the switch from Conservative to Progressive. It goes into different times of our history when a change of mathematics teaching was attempted.

I completely agree that people are math phobic in North America. Many people, particularly parents remember math being extremely difficult and meant only for a small elite or the nerds, and mad scientists who are unable to cope with the world of human interactions. Also, these people feel no shame at being incompetent at math. Children become scared of math before they even start and if they find it troubling they are told it’s ok. This fearful approach is the completely wrong approach towards math and has to be fixed.

Who said war wasn’t good for anything... Apparently, because of war, math curriculums were changed to better prepare students in math due to the perceived need of an increasingly scientific and technological populace. Between 1910 and 1940 a Progressivist Reform occurred due to World War I. John “Dewey challenged the Cartesian split between knowing and doing, or abstract and applied knowledge.” Dewey’s progressive education involved that students must form and test hypotheses and perceive patterns and relationships. His ideas only won acclaim in very progressive schools.

In the 1960s due to the USSR beating the US in the space race, “The New Math” was created. This was another progressive teaching method but it didn’t go over very well. Many math teachers themselves did not know this new math and were incapable of teaching. The new math “supported understanding over fluency,” and “inquiry and sense-making over absorbing and applying facts.

In some ways conservative methods of teaching math works. It works for some but not for all and because of that, people have been trying to change the curriculum for the better. But what gets in the way of this change? The math illiterate with their fears. Also, traditionalists who claim that children are being short-changed by teachers experimenting with their education when they use progressive methods.

The traditional methods of teaching works for some students but still too many are being left behind. Progressive methods must be integrated with the Conservative methods to accommodate a larger portion of students.