Thanks for writing Dylan. I am similarly skeptical, and actually worn out from having to talk about it all the time! I particularly liked your answer to "just teach critical thiking".
I'd love to understand why the reaction to all of these changes is always "this changes everything" rather than a more nuanced discussion of what exactly it does change. My personal opinion is that we should cut long division from the curriculum beyond 2 digits divided by 1 digit. But I'm not 100% confident in that opinion and I think it would be a really interesting conversation! Instead we're stuck in this cycle of yelling "this changes everything" and then realizing it's a disappointment and changing (close to) nothing.
I think this pushes us back to Tinkering Toward Utopia. Cuban and Tyack are trying to explain EXACTLY this phenomenon, about how the sky-high expectations of reformers (especially for tech) often end up just becoming another little tinker and improvement to classroom practice.
It's been a while since I've read the book, but I think what they would emphasize (building on Lortie) is how fundamentally conservative teaching is, and how resistant it is to change when teachers fundamentally are the ones who make a lot of decisions.
I need to read that one. Makes sense but also leads me to more questions -- why is teaching so conservative? What does change look like in other countries that have more centralized education systems?
Dan Lortie offers the "canonical" explanation of why teaching is conservative -- the long apprenticeship of teachers as students, the doubt about success/failure, the focus on NOW (as opposed to the future) in teaching.
But I think you're right that it's not a complete explanation -- I also think math curriculum internationally is pretty similar, so it's not just about the decentralization of US education.
Thanks for writing Dylan. I am similarly skeptical, and actually worn out from having to talk about it all the time! I particularly liked your answer to "just teach critical thiking".
"Suddenly another technological innovation, hand-held electronic calculators, has substantially altered personal calculation. Furthermore, these calculators are direct alternatives to the arithmetic and calculating methods that up to now have been the principal component of eight years or more of schooling in mathematics. I believe it would be difficult to overemphasize the challenge of that to mathematics education as we now know it. This direct challenge to our profession has come upon us over an amazingly short time period." https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27961285.pdf?casa_token=EEt7b0cbEwoAAAAA:pKWjx1IJulWjtI6N596jHJiu8QMGLtjklHRPN7z7gWtIPCNMr08B1TkP_lIcxJwu4QZ40yM07CU6ESn3kXzbaY7RHvWbcidr11W54tClLoRmVOFHdg
I'd love to understand why the reaction to all of these changes is always "this changes everything" rather than a more nuanced discussion of what exactly it does change. My personal opinion is that we should cut long division from the curriculum beyond 2 digits divided by 1 digit. But I'm not 100% confident in that opinion and I think it would be a really interesting conversation! Instead we're stuck in this cycle of yelling "this changes everything" and then realizing it's a disappointment and changing (close to) nothing.
Oh, what a good question.
I think this pushes us back to Tinkering Toward Utopia. Cuban and Tyack are trying to explain EXACTLY this phenomenon, about how the sky-high expectations of reformers (especially for tech) often end up just becoming another little tinker and improvement to classroom practice.
It's been a while since I've read the book, but I think what they would emphasize (building on Lortie) is how fundamentally conservative teaching is, and how resistant it is to change when teachers fundamentally are the ones who make a lot of decisions.
I need to read that one. Makes sense but also leads me to more questions -- why is teaching so conservative? What does change look like in other countries that have more centralized education systems?
Dan Lortie offers the "canonical" explanation of why teaching is conservative -- the long apprenticeship of teachers as students, the doubt about success/failure, the focus on NOW (as opposed to the future) in teaching.
But I think you're right that it's not a complete explanation -- I also think math curriculum internationally is pretty similar, so it's not just about the decentralization of US education.
"The school year is starting"?!
My first day is August 1...