Rama Menon

Winter 2003
A New Fanaticism, Pure Arrogance, or Sheer Naïveté?

The title of this “Musings,” I hope, captures my deep concerns about the sweeping reforms being, as it were, “visited upon us.”
Someone once defined a fanatic as one who believes there is a simple solution to all the problems in the world.  Upon reading an interesting article in Education Week, (Wednesday, November 20, 2002), found also at <http://www.edweek.org/ew/ew_printstory.cfm?slug=12math.h22> , I have a foreboding that a new fanaticism is upon us.

The report states that there is increased emphasis on math and science education, and the Federal government is launching a search for “research-based ways of teaching the subjects and improve teachers' knowledge of them.”  It was also reported that a $400,000 one-year grant has already been given to three prominent “back to basics” proponents, to raise teachers' content knowledge (as if one year is sufficient time to research, plan, and effect momentous changes!).  Additionally, the grant will look for ways for university presidents, deans, and mathematicians to agree about the amount and types of math courses that prospective teachers need to take.  (Significantly, one of the most important stakeholders--math educators--have been excluded.)

Do we math educators have to be concerned about this report?  I believe we do, because a) the “research-based ways” seem to be a synonymous with “experimental research based on the positivist world view,” (for a deeper discussion of this, see the latest AERA theme issue of the Educational Researcher, Volume 31, #8, November 2002, on Scientific Research in Education), and b) the initial $400,000 grant is reported to have been awarded by the Education Department to people whose expertise in math education is suspect.

Our concern should be whether different world views on what constitutes credible research, as well differing views of what math needs to be learned by prospective teachers, will be given any consideration at all, given that math educators have been excluded from the conversation.  In most countries, all stakeholders come together and attempt to reach an optimal solution to the problem of what math to teach and how to teach it, but this does seem to be the case here.

To exclude math educators from a task that will have far-reaching consequences is arrogance at best and fanaticism at worst.  Indeed, what is most incomprehensible is that these non-math educators are charged with developing “professional-development materials to be used in upgrading the skills of current middle school math teachers.”

It is a travesty that professors of math content at the university level, who usually teach at the university because of their superior math skills that were mastered without apparent difficulty, are charged with the professional development of teachers who had difficulty with math at the school level--the same teachers who are expected to teach children with a wide range of math abilities.  In other words, the traditional method that worked well for this elite few are being fostered on the general population--a sure recipe for disaster.

If these methods were so successful, how is it that so many of their peers did not do well in math?  As Joseph Merlino, of La Salle University, the Director of the Greater Philadelphia Secondary Mathematics Project aptly stated, “Just because you have a Ph.D. in math doesn't mean you know anything about how kids learn any more than a weightlifter is automatically qualified to design a fitness program for children. More than likely they'll wind up hurting the child by burdening them with too much weight, too fast.” (<http://mathematicallysane.com/analysis/standingup.asp> )
 
While everyone agrees that prospective teachers have to know more math, the belief that more college level math is the answer is sheer naïveté.  From the TIMSS report, it is clear that many of the teachers in countries that did well in TIMSS, did NOT hold a college degree, but had a good background in math, AND had good pedagogical skills.  Hence, the math content that prospective teachers should master should be those that have relevance to the math content they are going to teach, and these teachers should be taught in such a way as to have a deep understanding of the math, rather than computational skills per se.  It would be instructive to study how much of the math content taught by math professors helped students have a deeper understanding of math, as opposed to becoming facile at getting the correct answer by plugging in some numbers in formulae.

Research carried out by William Sanders, a North Carolina researcher who used teacher-experience data to evaluate student achievement in Tennessee, indicates that the single most important factor affecting students’ competency of subject matter knowledge is the teacher, and hence, the teaching effectiveness.  According to the study, children from different SES, or other areas of diversity, can succeed, if the teacher teaches effectively.  And for the teacher to do so, we would assume that the teacher has to have pedagogical content knowledge, not just content knowledge.  If we succeed in training such teachers, then what program they follow, whether a traditional or reform program, should not make too much difference.  Hence, the debate should be about what math content and pedagogy teachers need to master, rather than what program (traditional or reform) should be used by schools.

Could it be that the fanatics are actually laboring under either pure arrogance or sheer naïveté?  The arrogance could have been engendered by the supposedly superior intelligence evidenced by expertise in a difficult discipline, while the naïveté, could arise out of a belief that one’s expertise in one’s discipline (such as math), would automatically translate to being an authority on other disciplines as well.