Summary: Battleground Schools: Mathematics Education

The article has discussed the base of the standards of Mathematics education in North America since the beginning of the 20th century til present, which is actually, based on the two  view points: the progressive views, and the conservative views.There has been a kind of war between these two opinions to decide the standards, and implement the same. The progressives view understanding, eliciting, inquiry and sense making vital for Mathematics teaching and learning process, while the conservatives consider  fluency, authoritative, presentations and deductive explanations to be more important.The conservative views are influenced by a set of assumptions that are based on several attitudinal factors, that are responsible for creating fears in the minds of parents and educators that has resulted in a Math phobic society comprising of fearful parents and educators, untrained teachers, and bewildered students.

The three reform movements emerged during different time intervals in North America who battled against the preexisting system of Math education, and opened new gates for hope. The first was the progressive reform movement, which dated back to early 20th century, and opposed to the system of meaningless memorizing of the rules and algorithms. This movement was influenced by the changing patterns of the society as a result of rapid urbanization and industrialization. It urged for inquiry approach, active participation of the students that needed teacher as a facilitator who has to carefully structure the learning situations, in order to make their children think independently and democratically. The second movement was the "New Math" around 1960, emerged out of the post war situations as a result of increase in competition in science and technology at international levels, and aimed at producing future scientists.Their reformers advocated for unified logical, and highly abstract algebraic structure, but it soon came to an end because of the problems in implementing the curriculum as it needed fully qualified Math teachers, and also, the parents found it hard to help their kids in their homework.     

A new shift in setting the standards of Math education took place around late 1970s, and further NCTM developed its own standards and principles around 1980. They emphasized developing of the  problem solving skills, ability to represent mathematical relationships in different ways, use of technology,and ability to communicate mathematically. It urged for developing curricular material, professional development workshops for the teachers, new modes of assessments, involvement of the parents, and the use of the new technology. However it was not so easy to implement these curricular reforms as it had to bear the criticism from various organizations advocating traditionalists and new Math reform supporters, in many parts of North America.Thus mathematics education has been a puppet in the hands of concerned authorities on  various political grounds.

My Response

The article has been successful in presenting the history and the present of the Math education in North America. At first I was shocked to know about the political motives behind the educational policies, and the reasons why these motives were given more preferences, rather than actual reforms. I, personally, would like to go with NCTM reformed standards, which aim at developing the ability to think in the  students, so that they don't consider Mathematics as a hard, cool and dry subject, and use it as a way of life to become more capable citizens.