Division in the Math Ranks

The following letter was sent on a national education loop. It is well worth the read.

As a former member of Oregon Mathematics Teachers Association and a math teacher in the middle schools I look back to the ‘supplementary curriculums’ lining my book shelves held together in 3 ring binders. Family Math and Math Connections to name two. I also subscribed to TOMT, a publication put out by the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics if I remember correctly, which further supplemented the supplements.

At the time, they were a great resource for a teacher, especially those times when the daily routine of calculating needed a recess. Most of the lesson plans were earmarked with probability, statistics, logic or spatial exercises, more for fun and experiment that for preparing students for the world of applications. There were patterns to recognize, card tricks, puzzle worksheets and number theory. Not to say some of it is good to know, but it won't get one an engineering degree.

The truth of the NSF who would spoon feed a supplementary "dose of pabulum" are intentionally ‘dumbing down the math matter’. They rationalize the concept of creativity and send teachers to workshops to integrate ‘math in writing’, ‘math in art’, ‘math in music’, until the soup is so replete with combinations and permutations that the main mathematical ingredient is no longer palatable.

As evidence of "dumbing" the course, I would like to quote from Patterns in Lifelong Learning which outlines the new learning society and the future of our higher institutions.

The society has a right to expect higher educational institutions to take a long view with respect to the consequences and implications of professional preparation. Never again should universities make massive efforts to increase the flow of trained personnel, as they did in the 1960's (in the preparation of teachers and engineers, to name only two groups),without at the same time seeing to it that the learning experiences are flexible enough to permit the absorption of any excess graduates so trained into related or complementary fields. Without the vigilance of concerned educators, however, the prognosis is not favorable, since ever more narrowing specialization seems to be endemic to the educational system. Moves toward more general education and core curricula should be encouraged. (pp. 13)

A glance at this paragraph would elicit a mild reaction, but on close examination, it is the basis for the justification of a school-to-work mentality. Specialization has been the ‘endemic’ but this needs to give way to the rational effort of feeding "core" (social sciences) curricula to the majority of students, and reserving just enough of pure and applied math to cream of the crop students. Yes, they intentionally are skirting any effort to train our children as engineers. They succeeded in creating a shortage of well trained teachers and engineers and we now are witnesses to the enmass immigration of engineers to fill the gaps they designed.

If lifelong educational endeavor must characterize the citizens of tomorrow, then they must be prepared for it today; and such preparation does not usually result from the current approach to undergraduate education. The undergraduate is poorly served, indeed, unless he has developed confidence in his own ability to be a self-learner and to participate effectively in the largely unstructured and unprogramed educational opportunities that lie ahead for him as a professional person or lay citizen. (pp. 13)

In other words, if the universities are alliterated into Oxford educational models, whereby students are given the opportunity to learn standard and left to the tutors to ‘supplement’ their education, then undergraduates (including high schoolers) will need to develop the confidence to become self-directed, unfettered from structured classes.

Why the emphasis on statistics, probability and logic problems? They are necessary in the social sciences. The Nobel laureates stand on their high laurel pillars and in the name of an obsolete pencil and paper argument, state that poor or minority children would be stigmatized into lower math achievement classes and this is detrimental to their self-esteem. Oh, they will hold up some theorem (i.e. Pythagorean) and decoratively attach it to every real world problem they can invent to justify that students are reaching performance standards, claiming that the old system lacked in applications.

Another argument is the importance of knowing the process than arriving at a fact (answer). Why does one need to know the answer to 2/3 + 1/5 as long as one can model it using a geometric form (spatial understanding)? Fractions are out-dated they claim. The reality is if one cannot manipulate fractions, one cannot manipulate more complicated algebra problems.

Well trained teachers teach pure and applied mathematics to give every child the opportunity to pursue high tech jobs.

Diana Anderson

Teacher

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