Entrance Slip #4: Battleground Schools

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I honestly had no idea there was so much controversy over math education before reading this article. The first thing that made me stop was the dichotomies table on page 392. I definitely know of teachers who are a mix of both sides, or on a spectrum in between each option so it's worrying, but not surprising, that opposing sides described each other using extremes. It made me question some of the advice I received when talking to teachers in the past. I didn't realize there were people who took such strong stances but if that is the case, then unconsciously or consciously, teachers would be conveying those stances to their students as well. 

While I agree with all the reasons listed for why math education tends to gravitate to a conservative system, the one that stood out to me was the lack of qualified teachers in some areas (p.393-394). Growing up in a small town, I only had one math teacher who had a background in math. Most others were science or wood shop teachers. That being said, these teachers were all very enthusiastic and made a clear effort to teach us math properly. While I had a good experience in math, the same can't be said for my science experience. I had a teacher who wasn't qualified and repeatedly told us, "The answers are in the textbook," whenever we had a question about the worksheets we were assigned. It wasn't helpful at all and made the entire class feel like a waste of time. I can imagine how quickly students would turn from math if they had the same sort of experience with an unqualified teacher who was not making the effort to learn how to teach it effectively.  

The view that students were being "shortchanged" by teachers "experimenting" was another that stood out to me (p. 399). To a certain degree, I believe all teachers have to take some risks when trying to teach something meaningful. Sometimes those experiments fail miserably but at least the teacher can take that information and improve in the future. In my opinion, sticking to the comforting idea that calculations and right or wrong answers are the only things that exist in the realm of math is the real situation in which students are being shortchanged.