Reading Reflection: Battleground Schools

Three 'stops' that I had when learning about the fraught history of mathematics education in North America

The first place I stopped: The conservative and progressive comparing table.

When I went through this table, I could not stop to think about my math studying experience and compare with it. I think my learning experience has both conservative and progressive sides. Firstly, in my high school, the most important thing for students is to try their best to get higher marks in exams. Students use their marks to show whether they are good students or not. Parents and teachers’ approvals become a large part of students’ motivation. And if you want to get good marks, you should follow your teacher. In other words, we must finish lots of math assignments every day to make sure we have understood what we learnt in that day. The exams always have the unique correct answers. In this way, I think my secondary math study could be considered as conservative study. But I still remember my teacher usually prepared one more bonus question in every day’s assignment. Therefore, if we have time and feel interested in that specific topic, we can try that question and have a chance to get bonus point. And every week we can share our problems and talk with other students as well. We called that time “Math Corner” because we will never know what will happen before we turn around. I really enjoy it! During our “Math Corner”, we could not only figure out how to solve our own problems, but also communicate with other classmates to find more ways to solve the same question. I think this activity really encourages students to ask more questions and gives students more time to work in group and go deeper in different math topics. In this way, I think my high school experience also has the progressive side.

The second place I stopped: The math phobic attitudes.  

Based on my study experience, I think these math phobic attitudes are common in China as well. Some of my classmates who are not good at math usually have these attitudes. As I mentioned before, marks of exams are very important in our school. Parents and teachers always use marks as a principle to say whether you are good students or not. If they fail once, they will have more stresses (parents may blame them) and as a result, they may not do well in next exam again. The vicious circle makes them hate math and feel math hard and cold. I feel sad about this situation and I also wonder could we say this situation is one of bad influences of conservative education.

The third place I stopped: The New Math.

When I finished this section, I think it shows me some weakness of progressive education and makes me think how we should teach math. In this section, we can see the result of new program was not as good as what they expected. Many teachers could not understand why they should use the new way to teach math. And parents could not help their children with their homework, too. As can be seen from here, I think maybe a kind of successful math education could not make connection with teachers and students, but also connect with parents. Because I think parents also an inseparable part of students’ math education, many students will ask their parents for help when they have difficulties about their math homework. And I also think it is important for teachers to encourage students’ inquiry. Now because I don’t have any experience of teaching math, I really don’t know how to make these connections. But I am willing to apply some of my ideas into my math school visit.