oflovefaithhopedream

The following was posted to the math-teach@mathforum.org list earlier today in response to the posting of a piece by Andre Toom and some comments by Michael Sakowski (quoted at the end). It was Dave L. Renfro who posted earlier that he preferred the first piece by Professor Toom, as do I: I would concur with the idea that Toom's earlier article, " A Russian Teacher In America ," had much more of value than does the unpublished " Wars In American Mathematical Education ." Skimming the latter (I'm reading on a full stomach and I don't like to waste food), I was reminded of all the aspects of his prose and his "thought" on mathematics education that I find shallow and offensive. Aside from his blind bias against Americans and his utter lack of understanding of or appreciation for our culture (imagine what a Russian would say about an American writing something similarly chauvinistic about another nation), Toom never seems to consider alternate exp...

At the invitation of Gary Stager, I have written a piece for the on-line magazine THE DISTRICT ADMINISTRATOR / THE PULSE about the Math Wars.. Specifically, I've offered a perspective on K-12 mathematics viewed through the lens of W.W. Sawyer 's introduction to A CONCRETE APPROACH TO ABSTRACT ALGEBRA. My first contribution is called, "A Mathematician Weighs In On Math Course Construction, or Who Is W. W. Sawyer and Why Is He Saying These “Mathematically Incorrect” Things?"

I can't seem to get the issue of lattice multiplication off my mind. The negative reactions to this perfectly sound algorithm are not grounded in any reasonable arguments, as far as I can see. But I can't help but suspect that many people, both those who are vehemently opposed to teaching alternative approaches such as lattice multiplication, as well as those who are open to or neutral on this and similar ideas, believe that somehow some hippie math ed reformers at the University of Chicago Mathematics Project (UCSMP) dreamed it up one night and stuck it into EVERYDAY MATHEMATICS (unless other hippie math ed reformers at TERC beat them to it with their INVESTIGATIONS IN NUMBER, DATA & SPACE curriculum). Alternate theories, some involving Satan, Osama Bin Laden, or Josef Stalin have not been verified as of this writing. However, looking at Frank Swetz's CAPITALISM & ARITHMETIC, I came upon the following earlier today. I hope this doesn't cause riots among some of...