Math Wars!

Who would have thought the history of mathematics education in North America since 1900 would be so spicy? Obviously it should not come as that much of a surprise that viewpoints on math education have been and continue to be very polarizing, mimicking the political left vs. right dichotomy, but for some reason it still feels a bit shocking that something that has a reputation of being so objective (math) can still be used as a proxy for this seemingly never-ending battle. It truly is astonishing how much of society is pigeonholed into this binary. I thought Table M.1 did a fantastic job of summarizing the differences between these two main camps in math education - there really is nothing like a good table. 

I stopped when faced again with the proposition that one of the fundamental issues holding back mathematics education is the fact that so many adults, and especially educators, are so uncomfortable with math and do not understand most of its foundations. This creates a self-feeding loop that is incredibly hard to escape. I can't help but think that having math specialists in schools of all levels could help alleviate some of the negative consequences. I remember having a French specialist at my elementary school who taught every grade French. I'm sure most elementary teachers could blindly "teach" the fundamentals of French without speaking the language by focusing on spelling and grammar and watching videos, but the school recognized that learning a language from someone who does not speak it is a ridiculous thing. In this vain, it is preposterous that most kids are being taught math by people who don't speak it. Actually, I suspect most educators don't even recognize that math is a language.

The ties of the conservative school of thought in math education to fascism, neoliberalism, and religious extremism were not super surprising, but still exceptionally refreshing to see laid out in such an explicit and concise manner. I am in no way shocked that Thatcher & Reagan were (at least partially) behind the "back-to-basics" curriculum movement. I have a general rule that it is usually a fairly safe bet that when I find some policy from the last 50 years that is egregiously evil and/or stupid, it was probably one or both of them behind it.

Another thing that made me stop, and this time out of shock, was the Bourbaki group's banning of diagrams and call to stop teaching geometry. As someone who is generally more comfortable with algebra than geometry, I guess I selfishly understand the sentiment, but teaching math should be about providing as many avenues to understanding as possible, and a physical, geometric approach is often one of the more successful paths for students.

Overall I really enjoyed this reading. It is so important to learn the history of things like this so that we know how to avoid the traps of the past and trace a good path forward. It is also always good to be reminded that pretty much everything can be political. Really enjoying reading some of your work Susan :)

Dooo dododoo