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Re: Update about "The community of mathematics educators: Join in
defending fun
Posted:
Jan 14, 2013 10:21 PM
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Some day, Robert, it MAY occur to you that the protocols for a physics or chemistry experiment and those of the social sciences are, by the very natures of the various disciplines involved, inherently quite different and always will be.
Of course, honest critics of Boaler's work would admit that they don't have their own experiments upon which to justify the grandfathered methods of mathematics education they prefer. Instead, they shape their views based on personal experience (generally not too reliable when you're, say, one of the tiny percentage of humans who earn a Ph.D in mathematics or one of the physical sciences or an advanced degree in engineering or computer science) and politics (not the most reliable basis for judging fairly someone's practice from close up, let alone afar). There's no way you or several others here can claim that you look at Boaler's work with anything extreme prejudice against her and/or her ideas. In advance of any data of any kind, you're determined that her work can't possibly have helped anyone. Hence, the rules of the game will be changed at will to determine (by you) whether she's been successful. If it turns out that she has, then she must have been cheating. It's that !
simple.
Meanwhile, the amount of time and energy you expend flapping your gums about Boaler to an approximate audience of 6 to 10, most of them like-minded educational conservatives, is remarkable. What it is not is in any way constructive. No one, least of all school kids, benefits.
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