Math Forum Discussions

Tad Watanabe

Posts: 442
Registered: 12/6/04

Re: Chapter 3--Everybody Counts
Posted: Mar 15, 1995 8:00 AM

Plain Text

On Tue, 14 Mar 1995, Jack Roach wrote:

>
> > 4. Why is it that mathematics education in the United States resists
> change in spite of the many forces that are revolutionizing the nature
> and role of mathematics itself?
>
> First, no one trusts those friendly folks who gave us New Math. Any change
> suggested by these jokers is suspect. Secondly, it is far from clear that
> there are "many forces that are revolutionizing the nature and role of
> mathematics itself." Can you name two of these many forces?
>

Here may be one problem. Too many people think the current reform
efforts are coming from "those friendly folks who gave us New Math." It
is not an accurate statement for many reasons. First, the current
efforts do indeed come from different sources. Second, the implicit in
the statement is that New Math effort was complete failure, and that is
not the case. If you go back and investigate the different programs that
were developed during New Math era, many were very successful. Our
current school math curricula also reflects many of the (positive?)
changes that were brought up through those efforts. Therefore, even if
the current efforts were coming from the same source, that itself doesn't
make it invlid/useless/etc..

> > 5. Why do you suppose that 50% of school teachers leave the profession
> every seven years?
>
> Rotten working conditions coupled with almost total lack of respect from
> administrators.

So, what do you suggest we do for the teachers?

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