Battleground Schools

I found the history of mathematics education discussed in the article very informative. Although I knew that teaching biology and history is usually influenced by ideologies, I have never thought that the politics and ideologies, especially in countries that have democratic governments, could influence the mathematical education policies.   It was very interesting to learn that the politics of the cold war was responsible for the New Math program; a program that continued in Iran even during the years that I was a high school student despite the fact that its ineffectiveness had become clear long before that time and the program had been changed in the States where it had been originated.

I found the progressive/conservative dichotomy used to categorize the conflicting views on mathematical education useful. But what I really liked was the author’s awareness of the danger of oversimplification and the discussion of the shared views of these parties.

When I think about the math textbooks that are currently used in Canadian high school, I am reminded of the description of pre-reform math textbooks in the article. Unfortunately, the math that is taught is reduced to a series of algorithm to solve artificially created problems. Students are expected to master these rules and use them to solve problems that they are given in their homework and tests. Neither are they taught why these algorithms work nor the importance or the beauty of the problems that they are used to solve. I only can hope that the next reform pays more attention to the progressive views and incorporates more of Dewey’s ideas.