Reflection to Battleground Schools – Mathematics Education

Summary:
There are two main stances in mathematics education and they are the progressive and the conservative views. The progressivists’ goal is to understand mathematics relationally whereas the conservatists’ goal is to understand mathematics instrumentally through fluency.
The Progressivist movement occurred from 1910-1940 and was “led primarily by John Dewey.” This movement aimed at stirring away from the traditional instrumental learning of “meaningless memorized procedures” to focusing more at understanding “mathematics through activity and inquiry.”
The New Math movement in the 1960s was an initiative led by the School Mathematics Study Group (SMSG) and was “strongly influenced by the Bourbaki group of mathematicians in France.” The movement introduced a new curriculum “to be taught throughout the K-12 system” in an attempt to educate future scientists and intellectuals. New Math supporters “combined mainly conservative with some progressive features,” however, the movement quickly came to an end when it was “denounced in the press and popular media”.
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) developed its own standards program after anticipating “imposition of national curricular standards in the US.” The NCTM was influenced by progressive and constructivists approaches. From the mid 1990s to present day, there have been continuous “battles over mathematics curricula and teaching methods.”

Response:
It was nice to be able to get some background knowledge of how mathematics education came to be today. Although, I am not in favor of any particular movement, I think there is nevertheless something for me to benefit from. In particular, I think it is beneficial for the students if they can learn math instrumentally and/or relationally; as I believe it will help to consolidate the students’ understanding when math is taught from different perspectives. Also as a future teacher, I think it is crucial that I am flexible, open-minded and well-prepared for my classes so that when a ‘new math program’ is introduced my students aren’t left confused in the dark.