Battlegrounds

When I was reading the article, the first thing that stopped me was when the article mentioned how people from various backgrounds have the assumption that there aren't any other ways of "rigorous mathematical training" for new generations other than the fixated, stereotypical assumptions people have about math. I find this very intriguing and relatable because growing up, people around me always thought of math as boring and dull. Many view the subject as purely memorizing and applying equations to problems given on assignments and exams. To add on, I attended classes where I received conservative learning similar to what the article talked about. Teachers would often give us homework and exams without putting much effort into explaining the concepts behind them. A lot of the time, I was memorizing and writing down answers without understanding where they came from. A teacher who lacks sufficient subject knowledge can create difficulties for students. This can cause lot of people to become math-phobic, and I want to make sure that doesn't happen in my own classroom.

The other thing that caught my eye was Dewey implementing the inquiry-based approach of teaching into the system. This struck me because in the past when I was learning math, it was always the conservative way of learning and it seemed as though no other approaches could work. It makes me wonder what non-conservative approaches I could implement when I start teaching. The progressive way of teaching also involves students moving around and talking with peers for social interaction and reflection, which help students improve in different aspects, not just their math knowledge. I was interested in how Dewey proposed that students engage in doing math as part of reflective inquiry, perhaps allowing students to reflect and test hypotheses on questions would be more beneficial to students in the long run.

The last thing that stopped me was the focus on the political aspects of math education that sparked debates between different groups on how math should be implemented in school systems. It was very interesting to see how the clash between multiple parties contributed to the development of the education system we know of today, from "New Math", which attempted to reshape math curriculum in order to prepare students in competition with the USSR, to the backlash against standards-based curriculum in the 1990s. With so many influences on math throughout our history, the back and forth arguments in the article between different groups make me wonder what are some of the possible ways we can incorporate everyone's perspective on learning into one to develop a better curriculum for the future.