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Articles > University Mathematics Professors Perspectives on Mathematics Education...
University Mathematics Professors Perspectives on Mathematics Education...
"We want our students to think mathematically and to discover that mathematics, while based on abstractions, is closely related to the real world of solving problems. Such [mathematics] reforms demand more of students by asking them to think and reason on a higher level than ever before. They ask teachers to have high expectations for all their students. And they emphasize that learning is an active process. Students should not be memorizing mathematics passively, but rather using their knowledge to solve problems. If you use what you know, you'll remember it. The technological future invites our children to explore the essence of mathematics, which is to describe and understand the order that underlies apparently complex and diverse situations. Why block that road to the future? If we recognize the wisdom of sustaining mathematics reform efforts now, we will see in the next generation a society of productive wage-earners and decision-makers who can tackle the complex and diverse problems of our time."
– Dr. Calvin Moore, Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley in an opinion letter to the Sacramento Bee, October 18, 1995.
"The newness of the 1995 Framework, based upon the 1989 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Curriculum and Evaluation Standards, and the degree to which it has been implemented: If the cry for doing away with the Framework is because 'it has not worked,' I should like to know how anyone knows. It is estimated that the Framework is fully implemented in no more than ten to twelve percent of the mathematics classrooms in the state. If the poor performance of California's students mean anything at all, it means we ought to accelerate the change in our schools to the new, contextually-rich, pupil-participation curriculum. The children's poor performance may be blamed on a lot of things; it cannot be blamed on the new Framework for the simple reason that it is not sufficiently implemented yet to be responsible for much of anything statewide.
I keep hearing, and reading, from people who have never taught a public-school mathematics class that the solution to all our mathematics ills is to get back to the basics. This phrase has a nice ring to it until you try to find our what it really means. Everybody wants our students to know the basics–to learn to be mathematically literate–well-equipped for dealing rationally and quantitatively with the 21st century. But is the 'back to basics' movement advocating a return to the old basics, or a move forward to the basics that our citizens will need in order to work, indeed to survive, in the technological universe in which we are all goingto be living in just a few years. (The 21st century is only five years away.) It appears utterly clear that what is sometimes called 'shopkeeper arithmetic,'–addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of whole numbers, fractions, and decimal fractions, and percentages–while highly important, is no longer in any sense the significant basics for our children to learn. In fact a four-function calculator, regularly available for less than five dollars, can do all that and more."
– Carl D. Waddle, Ph.D., Associate Dean of Instruction, Fresno City College in a Letter to the Editor of the Fresno Bee, April 6, 1995.
"We must acknowledge the accumulating evidence that the traditional programs leading to a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree in mathematics do not produce the highly marketable skills needed to enter the hot growth fields in the peacetime economy–biotechnology, genetic engineering and telecommunications, to name a few... Unfortunately, many mathematics Ph.D.s are not adept at solving problems that arise in the real world. Until we prepare our students appropriately for research and development positions in industry, the hiring patterns won't change... Recent experience has taught us that business-as-usual approach no longer works in our changing economic and political environment. If we act now to reexamine both the content and size of our graduate programs we can begin producing mathematicians better trained to meet the challenges of the next century."
– Charles E. Mannix, Jr., a 1993 recipient of a Ph.D. in applied mathematics and Kenneth A. Ross, professor of mathematics at the University of Oregon and president of the Mathematical Association of America, in a point of view article in "The Chronicle of Higher Education," August 11, 1995.
"As teachers in the California State University system, we are all too aware of the deficiencies in the mathematics preparation that have hindered so many of our students in the past, especially in terms of conceptual understanding and ability to use mathematical ideas, and we believe that the changes proposed in the Standards and the Framework represent the type of quality mathematics education that K-12 students need in order to be prepared for college-level mathematics. We also recognize that implementing such changes in the schools is a major undertaking, and that there have been and will continue to be occasional bumps along this road. Nevertheless, we believe that it would be a serious error to use these difficulties as an excuse to return, as some are urging, to a curriculum that approaches mathematics as a set of manipulative techniques. Mastery of basic skills is necessary but not sufficient to make mathematics of use of interest to students and citizens. Teachers must be able to embed the basics in problems of magnitude and relevance that display and require understanding of mathematical concepts. We therefore urge that sufficient resources be devoted to professional development in mathematics for our teachers to assist them in the process of making a transition to new curricula."
– David Meredith, James T. Smith, Daniel Fendel, Diane Resek, Eric Hayshi, Vincent J. Bruno, Judith M. Ekstrand, Franklin Sheehan, Newman Fisher; Mathematics Department, San Francisco State University in a letter to the Task Force on the California Mathematics Framework, May 3, 1995
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