{"id":156,"date":"2007-04-14T10:42:11","date_gmt":"2007-04-14T10:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/maths\/?p=156"},"modified":"2020-03-14T19:29:30","modified_gmt":"2020-03-14T19:29:30","slug":"dumbing-down-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/maths\/?p=156","title":{"rendered":"Dumbing Down 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Dumbing Down<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I mentioned the concern about mathematics education in Washington State USA. There is now a campaign there about ‘reform math’ which appears to be a system of education that tries to avoid teaching mathematics skills. As part of the campaign you can watch videos on YouTube from meteorologists Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth<\/a> (which unfortunately stops half-way through) and Math Education: A University View<\/a>. The latter video claims that California abandoned ‘reform math’ some years ago and as a result had an astonishing increase in students’ mathematical performances. You can read more on the campaign’s website Where’s the Math?<\/a><\/p>\n

I shall be following this debate because, where the US goes, the UK often follows. This dumbing down of mathematical education\u00c2\u00a0may be\u00c2\u00a0linked to the shortage of good mathematics teachers since such ‘reform math’ can be taught by non-mathematicians. It’s clear that the descent into a\u00c2\u00a0downward spiral\u00c2\u00a0soon follows.<\/p>\n

In the UK there has been a suggestion of ‘bribing’ students to study maths and science A levels ‘Pay students’ to revive science<\/a> – are today’s students that shallow? How about good mathematics teaching which imbues a sense of wonder and delight?<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0Alexandre Borovik in Division of Labour<\/a> suggests that<\/p>\n

The era of extensive mathematical education of majority is over — we have to develop a model of intensive mathematical education of minority.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He is not convinced that the mathematical education community can do this. I like the idea\u00c2\u00a0of extending the syllabus for\u00c2\u00a0those students who have the ability but I am\u00c2\u00a0also concerned about not leaving mathematics to an elite totally cut-off from the rest of the country.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0Hence my\u00c2\u00a0previous question in Dumbing Down<\/a><\/p>\n

Is it possible to teach mathematics to a larger range of students without compromising on the level taught?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

PS I just have to add this quote from The Unapologetic Mathematician<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0discussing this issue because it encapsulates what I have been trying to say for years though I fear it fell on deaf ears<\/p>\n

The algorithm comes first, and understanding comes later. Mathematics simply is. It cannot be negotiated. Mathematics education as realized in the NCTM standards has been taken over by sociologists, or even Critical Theorists. They are vehemently opposed to the seemingly-authoritarian rote method and saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153just do it like this and don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask why\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Never mind the fact that in this case \u00e2\u20ac\u0153why\u00e2\u20ac\u009d comes naturally after \u00e2\u20ac\u0153how\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about time for mathematicians to come down and start kicking some ass over this, or we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be left with nobody capable of replacing us.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Dumbing Down\u00c2\u00a0I mentioned the concern about mathematics education in Washington State USA. There is now a campaign there about ‘reform math’ which appears to be a system of education that tries to avoid teaching mathematics skills. As part of the campaign you can watch videos on YouTube from meteorologists Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/maths\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/maths\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/maths\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/maths\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/maths\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/maths\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/maths\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/maths\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/maths\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/maths\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}