Explain this
Why Teach Mathematics?
How the publisher describes it:
“In this book, the author discusses a modern concept of general education that then helps to clarify both curricular and pedagogical deficits involved in conventional mathematics instruction. It provides an outline of an alternative mathematics instruction that can help to realize a general education and presents detailed arguments for seven interconnected objectives of a school system aiming at general education.”
Review by Pete Lane
In brief:
It is a shame that the text is not more classroom-teacher-friendly and I was personally left still looking for some clear ideas to inform my daily teaching and planning. On the other hand, maybe I have just identified an opportunity for someone to write the classroom teacher’s version of this research.
“Pedagogy is failing to achieve maximum potential within these objectives”
Maths is crucial to our understanding of the world we live in and has significant practical and cultural impact on how we live our lives. Yet it is perceived as dreary and irrelevant by so many of our students in school.
The author’s aim is to establish what the core content of a compulsory maths education ought to be. In the introduction, he links his aim to ‘seven distinguishable, interconnected objectives of a school system aiming at general education and personal development’, including preparing for later life, promoting cultural competence and critical thinking, developing an understanding of the wider world and a sense of responsibility, practicing communication and cooperation and enhancing students' self-esteem. The author takes these perfectly laudable objectives, explains each of them in detail and then considers how current mathematics curriculum and pedagogy is failing to achieve maximum potential within these objectives.
In the course of his argument, the author refers to many previous authoritative studies on the subject, whilst expressing his own concerns about the appropriateness of much of our day-to-day application of mathematics in the classroom.
The book does clearly succeed in expressing the currently topical dilemma of trying to provide a general relevant mathematics education for all secondary age students, whilst maintaining the mathematical progress of the next generation of students who need to be adequately prepared for mathematics-intensive careers.
I was also intrigued by the concept presented that technology requires ever higher mathematical ability from a few, whilst simultaneously removing the need for mathematical ability for most of the population.
This is an unashamedly academic book. It has been translated from an original German publication of seven years ago and mainly refers to the German education system. All this combines to make the discussion threads quite difficult to follow. Now, I am sorry if that offends anyone, but I did stick with it and read it all and I do think that it provides very useful input for high-level discussion and research on the core-maths curriculum debate. However, it is a shame that the text is not more classroom-teacher-friendly and I was personally left still looking for some clear ideas to inform my daily teaching and planning. On the other hand, maybe I have just identified an opportunity for someone to write the classroom teacher’s version of this research...
Pete Lane • Second in Maths and e-Learning Manager<br />Swinton Community School Maths and Computing College
Hardcover: 270 pages
Publisher: Springer (31 Dec 2003)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1402017863
ISBN-13: 978-1402017865
Product Dimensions: 25 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm
