Battleground schools response

The first thing that made me stop and think during this reading was the statement regarding how many teachers themselves are uncomfortable in math and avoid it in their own post-secondary education, and as a result they often “inculcate similar attitudes in their own students” (p. 394) in their own teaching. This made me stop to imagine if just one teacher in a school has this attitude, and passes it onto even half of their students, over time this could really negatively affect how students at the school think about math. Further, eventually those students may become teachers themselves and pass on those views to even more students. Just thinking about the waves of influence one teacher can have even (either positively or negatively) generationally is impactful to me.

I also thought it was interesting how cyclical opinions of math education seem to be (like the swing of a pendulum as explained in the chapter). More specifically, hearing that the concerns about math education over 100 years ago sound very similar to concerns I hear about and think about now is very surprising to me. It seems like feeling like our country is “behind” in math education leads to wanting a quick solution, leading to more conservative changes to the curriculum. I imagine that there is a better balance somewhere in the middle of these two stances, and I wonder if I’ll see some convergence to this point in my time as a teacher.

Lastly, I was surprised to read about how politically charged a lot of the changes made to the math curriculum have been. Until probably a few years ago, I never really considered the political nature of school. I guess I naively imagined it like a void free of politics, and a place to develop and think critically about different ideologies independently of outside influences. Even now, I didn’t realize that something like Sputnik was so influential in the American math curriculum. This makes me think back to my blog response in EDCP 342, where I mentioned how important it is that I try to discover my blind spots, so I don’t inadvertently pass them on to my students. This feels like one of those blind spots that this program is really opening up my eyes to.