Battleground Schools Response

The first time I stopped while reading this article was when the reasons behind a conservative baseline existing in regard to mathematics education in America were presented. This made me stop for two reasons. The first is the idea of a negative view of math being something that is a
societal truth. Immediately upon reading it, it seemed obvious to me but for some reason I had never thought of it like that. I had always sort of thought “a lot of people just don’t like math” and never thought about the societal view of math that is behind this. The second thing that caused me to stop when reading about the reasons behind the conservative baseline was the idea that people who thrive in traditional (lecture based and with a focus on the correct answer over process and understanding) math settings support conservative math education. This made me stop because it made me wonder if in some cases by creating more progressive math classrooms are we causing difficulties for kids who might thrive in a more traditional environment. Given that many of the subjects kids learn in school (social studies, art, English, and often science) are almost always taught in a way that involves a lot of group work, discussion of how personal experience relates to the subject and, the idea that there is not one right answer, it seems likely that students who struggle with group projects and subjective grading might find comfort and reprieve in a more traditional math class. A more traditional class might let them get a break from the expectation that they work in groups and participate in class discussions and instead let them have the chance to strive for a more straightforward goal of finding the correct answer. This isn’t to say that I would not want to implement many of the ideas correlated to progressive math education into my own classroom. However, I think also bringing an awareness that the structured unemotional aspects of math could be important to some students into my teaching seems like it would be wise.

I also as I was reading found myself comparing “New Math” and the NCTM standards. I think logically what the NCTM standards did is closest to what I think would be best for the math classes I may teach in the future. Despite this I can’t help but think that I personally would do best in a math classroom that taught something closer to New Math. New Math seemed to take the aspects of progressive teaching that I found the most important to me as a student while also teaching math in an abstract version of math that I think I would have enjoyed when I was younger. This makes me wonder how best to teach, when I know that not every student will see math the same way I do or will enjoy learning in the same ways I like to learn.