Battleground Schools: Mathematics Education

The article discusses the 20^th century controversies around the development of mathematical education in North America. These tensions are closely related to political climate of the day. The dichotomies of conservative and progressive approaches lie in the differences in their objectives, methods of teaching, attitude, assessments, etc. Some of the characteristics of the conservative approach are: fluency as a goal, presenting as a method, authoritative discipline, learning of facts and algorithms through explanations, and takes the view that math is for an elite few. On the other hand, progressive view is more about understanding, inquiry and sense-making, original thinking, exploratory, examples from lived experiences, and assessment with an emphasis on process and evidence of mathematical thinking. The factors influencing the direction in which education system evolved are based on society’s (negative) views of mathematics, as well as some teachers’ and administrators’ positions in the education system such as their successes with a conservative system and their math phobias due to lack of knowledge.

There are three 20^th century movements of mathematical development including: Progressivist reform (from 1910 – 1940), The New Math during the 1960’s, and the NCTM Standards that emerged around 1990. The Progressivists emphasized the importance of knowing why rather than merely how to arrive to solutions. Dewey’s view was teaching should focus on students’ inquiries with an emphasis on doing rather than merely knowing math.  The New Math movement of the cold war period reflected society’s anxiety of the West’s competition with technical advances of the Soviet Union. As a result mathematical education became engaged in mainly highly abstract curriculum aimed at future rocket scientists. Subsequently, the NCTM standards introduced new tensions in mathematical education based on right-wing politics of the day in the 1990’s. The focus was on standardized testing and reining-in of teacher autonomy in the name of accountability. There was the emphasis to bring the curriculum back to basics whereas the system of standards introduced greater conflicts between teaching approaches which have been a distraction from the goal of improved mathematical learning. Fortunately, greater attention is being paid to improving learning of mathematics which would ultimately help the students.

I think it is important to separate ideological philosophies and other interests from the goal of improved mathematical learning. The policy makers should focus on both the learners and the environment, or socioeconomic circumstances of the time. For example, as much as the understanding of why certain mathematical theories work it is also important to recognize its uses. For example, the technological advancements in the computer science field that we have made in the last couple of decades have had impact on how we learn and teach mathematics. We use technology to solve problems and we learn necessary, and sometimes abstract, math to develop the technology. So, I think both approaches include useful elements and we should strive to find the right balance in our teaching practices and curriculum development.