Pinning The Blame On The Wrong Donkeys: A Response to "The Problem With Math Education"
The latest post on the blog " The Math Mojo Chronicles " states in part: The Problem with Math Education Filed under: math education, public schools; Author: Brian; Posted: December 8, 2008 at 8:18 pm; Well, of course it’s not the problem, just one of many, but here it goes… Somehow along the way, people got the feeling that math is supposed to always be right, and that math teachers are supposed to know all the answers. Math has gotten the reputation of being an authoritarian science. I don’t think this is the fault of mathematicians, I think it is the fault of many math educators who have tried to turn mathematics from an art and science into a “subject.” Math education is all too often about “standards” and “curricula” that students take “tests” about that they are “graded” on. If Archimedes was to take a high-school math test today, he would be unfamiliar with the jargon, and would find little value in the trite little multiple-choice and partial credit nonsense that pas...