{"id":308712,"date":"2010-02-11T17:55:29","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T22:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2011049324_constructivistmathtextbooks.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-02-11T17:55:29","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T22:55:29","slug":"constructivist-math-textbooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/308712","title":{"rendered":"Constructivist math textbooks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reforming math<\/strong><\/p>\n

Recent articles and editorials have presented a one-sided view of the \u201cDiscovering Math\u201d series [\u201cJudge tells Seattle School Board: Do the math,\u201d News, Feb. 7 and \u201cSchools: Do the math,\u201d Opinion, Feb. 8]. As an educator and father of two high-schoolers, I believe we need a more thoughtful and balanced discussion.<\/p>\n

Constructivist math, like inquiry science, is an effort to get our young people to learn to ask questions as well as memorize answers. In a world beset by financial, ethical and environmental crises, we may need to be asking more questions. Asking questions is optimistic and it presumes we can construct new answers \u2014 this is what creative scientists and entrepreneurs do. Constructivist learning brings creativity into education rather than forcing potential innovators to drop out.<\/p>\n

Constructivist math also offers mathematical literacy to the majority of students who \u201cdon\u2019t get math.\u201d They cannot make the transition from a context-rich natural language to the abstract symbolism of mathematics. I have two of these \u201cDiscovering Math\u201d books on my dining room table and they make this transition admirably and repeatedly. Their approach makes mathematical reasoning relevant and meaningful to those who are not yet competent and excited by mathematics.<\/p>\n

This is why the \u201cDiscovering Math\u201d series has garnered support in other communities and why we need a more-informed discussion about math education.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Don Comstock, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n

Students need both types of math<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Times, like so many others, has the wrong take on the reform versus traditional math controversy. It should never be a question of one or the other. Our children need both!<\/p>\n

Traditional math emphasizes memorization of facts, procedures, formulas, algorithms and working independently as well as having the teacher explain what the students should do. These are all necessary and legitimate teaching methods.<\/p>\n

Reform math emphasizes understanding the underlying math concepts, discovering alternative algorithms to help clarify the concepts, working in small groups in order to have mathematical conversations with peers and the teacher facilitating these processes. These are also necessary and legitimate teaching methods.<\/p>\n

Why then, would we choose to follow only one or the other? Remember the phonics versus whole language controversy of a few years ago? Turns out our children need both but we wasted time, resources and energy to fight a meaningless battle. Let\u2019s not repeat that mistake!<\/p>\n

\u2014 David G. Gardner, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n

Learning from experience<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Times is right, for the good of its students, the Seattle School Board should not use the Discovering Mathematics teaching system. Here\u2019s an example why: My 1946-1947 high-school trigonometry class was taught according to an ancestor of these modern methodologies and I learned little.<\/p>\n

Four years later I was a radioman aboard Navy long-range aircraft and \u2014 among other tasks \u2014 used the radio direction finder to obtain bearings for the navigator. So I could best serve him, he gave me a short lesson on navigation and the math he used. In about an hour, that young ensign taught me more about trigonometry than I learned in a year at high school.<\/p>\n

More than 60 years have gone by and apparently educators still haven\u2019t learned what works and what doesn\u2019t. Math should be taught in a direct, applicable manner \u2014 ideally by mathematicians, but at least by those who have used mathematics.<\/p>\n

I still have \u201cMathematics for Electricians\u201d and \u201cRadiomen\u201d by Nelson M. Cooke, which I obtained in \u201851 or \u201952 and used extensively. It has 500 pages of no-nonsense lessons. I\u2019ll be happy to donate it to the Seattle School Board if they promise to learn from it.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Harry Petersen, Bellevue<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reforming math Recent articles and editorials have presented a one-sided view of the \u201cDiscovering Math\u201d series [\u201cJudge tells Seattle School Board: Do the math,\u201d News, Feb. 7 and \u201cSchools: Do the math,\u201d Opinion, Feb. 8]. As an educator and father of two high-schoolers, I believe we need a more thoughtful and balanced discussion. Constructivist math, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}