Summery of "school battels

Summery of "BattleGround Schools"

Among people in North America, there has been always an existence of the “math phobic” attitude. Most people who have math phobias are the ones who do not have a good understanding of math and always attempted to memorize math rather than comprehending it. This is extremely endemic among element teachers who unfortunately transfer the same attitude to their students. Due to such attitudes, mathematics education in North American has been varying between two poles, progressive and conservative, since early nineteenth century and it resulted in battles around three periods and movements.

The first movement, “Progressivist Reform (circa 1910-1940) which was originally led by John Dewey, was based more on “activities” and “inquiries” rather than “sitting still and taking in what the teacher presented”. Back to early nineteenth century, there were many analysis/critiques about the mathematics curriculum which was based on complex trials that were led to an answer “with no sense of why those particular procedures worked.”After a growth in population through immigration, and some other factors such as urbanization and World War (I), demands raised for more practical mathematics curriculum; and as a result, John Dewey’s teaching techniques was accepted the most since it was all about “ ‘programming the environment’.”

The second movement, The New Math (1960(s)), appeared as soon as American sensed that USSR was “beating” the US in the “space race”. The launch of the Soviet Sputnik significantly shocked Americans which led to a change in America’s mathematics curriculum. The new curriculum was completely based on abstractions and set theories to make students ready to compete with USSR. But not much after, this curriculum failed because teachers found it highly complicated to teach abstract math. Also, parents found themselves powerless in helping their kids with their math homework since they learned math differently. This was the end of “The New Math” curriculum which opened the space for third movement, “Math Wars”.

After the second movement, in the late 1970(s) and 1980(s) education policies started to put their emphasis on “back-to basic” curriculum. In addition, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) started building its own standard program which later led to a “Math War.” After NCTM started publishing their own curriculum, which was “well-received” by governments and teacher, governments saw this as teachers’ agreement however, most of the educators were not pleased with the content of the curriculum and they believed that the content of the standards are “supporting a balanced, progressive approach.” In 1996, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) found America’s grade eight students in 28th rank which was shocking for American and brought anxiety. They found that the key is a deeper conceptual understanding of mathematics that most countries like Japan, Hong Kong Singapore and South Korea were following. Currently, the media, which come with their own beliefs and philosophies, are playing a significant role in “creating” education in North America.