Word: mathes
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When opponents of these currents are being polite, they call that kind of talk nonsense. And they have labels of their own. One is "whole math," a pejorative reference to "whole language," the controversial method of reading that emphasizes learning entire words and phrases over mastering phonics. Another is "new-new math," recalling the ill-fated New Math fad of the 1960s and '70s, which introduced millions of students to math arcana like set theory and congruences. (Remember those? Didn't think...
Resistance has resulted in pitched battles at school-board hearings and within academia over the future of U.S. math education. Educational scholar E.D. Hirsch Jr. says opposition to the newest math is "suddenly making people wake up and say, It doesn't work, it doesn't comport with reliable theories, and we're making a mistake...
...started in 1989, when the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, in response to the consistently poor math scores of U.S. children, issued new standards overhauling math education. Out went the stalwarts of traditional math: the rote memorization drills, the droning chalkboard lectures. In came the cool stuff: calculators and geoboards, hands-on, open-ended problems, exercises that encourage kids to discover their own route to the right answer. "The standards emphasized that you had to pay attention to how kids think," says Gail Burrill, president of the council...
Eight years later, 40 states have instituted some "standards-based" math programs in their schools, and the National Science Foundation spends $10 million a year on development of comprehensive instructional materials. California has become a leader: one cutting-edge curriculum called MathLand is used, its publishers claim, in 60% of the state's K-6 classrooms--including those in Fernangeles, where MathLand is taught in both English and Spanish. It even has its own Website: 192.216.191.114/. "These kids will be better problem solvers," says Pullman. "They will think more...
...talk to opponents--including newly aroused parents--and you'll hear horror stories of reformers dumping the most basic algorithms, or first-graders turning to a calculator to subtract 4 from 6, or "math" textbooks featuring lessons on endangered species and the Dogon people of West Africa. "Whole math," says molecular biologist Michael McKeown, "means less material covered in less depth with less rigor." Early last year, McKeown co-founded Mathematically Correct, a Website based in San Diego ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mathman/ that has become the nerve center for the counterinsurgency. Here parents like Marianne Jennings of Mesa, Ariz., share dispatches from...