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Re: Traditional versus reform
Posted:
Feb 23, 1999 8:55 PM
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Jerry Uhl wrote:
> I wish to clarify the post I made yesterday. To wit: In no way did I intend
> to equate Mathematically Correct with the other political movements
> mentioned in the post.
> On the other hand, I did intend to point out that they all use similar
> tactics - but not all to the same end.
You know, Jerry, even so I think you are a bit off base.
I am not a math-teacher-educator, just a classroom teacher who thinks a bit. I
really liked a lot of the emphases of the NCTM standards when I first saw them
11 or 12 years ago. But, unfortunately, I have seen a lot of stuff coming out
of the fools who pass for curriculum experts in my own school district, that
claim to be supporting the NCTM Standards, that is pure and unadulterated
nonsense.
I don't really know the facts of what the various curricula are like in
California, not having spent any real amounts of time there (I live & work in
DC). But if the curricula in LaLa Land are anything like the piles of
excrement that my own school system keeps coming up with, then I would
probably be a pretty upset parent too. I have had to use some pretty
ridiculous textbooks, too, that hop on way too many bandwagons and confuse the
heck out of the students.
On the other hand, I have said several times that those who harken back to a
"golden age of math education" in the USA are swigging way too much moonshine.
It didn't happen, ever. So let us try to have a little bit of balance. No
Wayne Bishop raving that all the NCTM types are crypto-racists; no Jerry Uhl
saying that everybody who has problems with some aspects of the reform
movement is a crypto-KKK'er.
A bit more civility, please, on all sides.
Guy Brandenburg
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