Word: avant
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...Schmid is simplistic on calculators, incorrect on "downgrading skills," hyperbolic on the "avant garde reformers," irrational on textbook economics, ill-informed on "statistical studies and anecdotal evidence," inverted on the role of "understanding" in the "New Math " of the 60's (except that it was, indeed, "the mathematicians" who pushed that misguided effort into our schools) and tangential about "textbooks." He is correct to call for continuing improvement in teacher education to support more challenging mathematics in every classroom, but wrong to downplay the central role of pedagogy in pre-college math classrooms...
...guilty of flouting convention, so is Rei Kawakubo. Since 1981, when she made her first Paris showing, the creative force behind Comme des Garons has taken avant-garde fashion to evermore jaw-dropping levels. Jagged ruffles, tattered plaid and wads of foam creating Quasimodo-like lumps are all incorporated into a body of work that can hardly be described as ready-to-wear. Jorge Silvetti, Chair of the GSD Department of Architecture, quoted Kawakubo as having said "I want to design clothes that have not yet existed; I want to be rebellious." Despite, or perhaps because of, her defiantly individualistic...
...Fluxus is often pegged the "other tradition" of the twentieth century avant-garde, the irrational alternative to high modernism's fixation on form, structure and dogma. Watts and Kaprow inherited this position from Marcel Duchamp, father of Dada and first to insist that "the viewer completes the work of art." Their process was Duchampian in intent and radical in form: they created art objects from everyday objects and performance pieces from everyday events, decontextualizing those elements and thereby giving the piece a new function within the aesthetic space of the gallery. Often they rejected the confines of the gallery space...
Among teachers and mathematics educators, the avant-garde reformers are the most energetic, and their voices drown out those skeptical of extreme reforms. On the other side, among academic mathematicians and scientists who have reflected on these questions, a clear majority oppose the new trends in math education. The academics, mostly unfamiliar with education issues, have been reluctant to join the debate. But finally, some of them are speaking...
...they ran their own houses but who excel at engaging, exciting and infuriating the fashion press. Arnault points to John Galliano's spring collections for Dior this year as typical of what he wants from his designers. "His ideas are not meant to be worn," Arnault says of the avant-gardish collection of bag-lady-style ball gowns, "but the ideas descend down to pret-a-porter and to everything in the line. And that's what we sell." So far, Arnault hasn't missed. The hype Dior generated on the runways facilitated the relaunch of the immensely successful...