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Traditional versus reform
Posted:
Feb 16, 1999 4:52 PM
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Some of the old timers might remember Morris Kline's book Why Johnny Can't
Add (St Martin's ,1973). This book was a stunning denouncement of the "New
Math" of the 1960's. It was the death blow for the "New Math." And it is
well worth reading even today.
Folks who have not read this book might assume that Kline recommends a
quick return to the "Traditional Math" which preceded the "New Math." Not
so.
In fact Kline wrote:
"Clearly the defects of the traditional curriculum are numerous.
-> The reliance upon memorization of processes and proofs,
-> the disparate treatments of algebra and geometry,
-> retention of a few outmoded topics
-> and absence of any motivation or appeal explain why young people do not
like the subject and therefore do not do well in it."
The moral: Going back to "Traditional Math" is not the cure for the "New Math."
Later in the book, Kline outlined where he he taught math education should
go when it abandons "New Math." In his outline, Kline describes a lot of
what has become part the modern reform movement.
The moral: Reform efforts of today are mislabeled by those who talk about
"New New Math."
-Jerry Uhl
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Jerry Uhl juhl@ncsa.uiuc.edu
Professor of Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Member, Mathematical Sciences Education Board of National Research Council
Calculus&Mathematica, DiffEq&Mathematica, Matrices,Geometry&Mathematica,
NetMath
http://www-cm.math.uiuc.edu and http://netmath.math.uiuc.edu
"Is it life, I ask, is it even prudence,
To bore thyself and bore the students?"
. . . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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