Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth
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Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth is a video released on Internet sharing sites January 2007 on YouTube and Google Video. It was created by Where's the Math, a Washington State based advocacy organization concerned about the direction of mathematics education reform. Parent and television meteorologist M.J. McDermott explains the current state of math education in 4th and 5th grades, and how traditional mathematics have been replaced by methods which are more complicated, slower, and not understood by parents.
Within weeks, it was viewed well over 70,000 times, and cited on many blogs across the United States and Canada. It was also cited by the Toronto Sun in an article entitled "The baffling new math" largely supporting the video's thesis. [1]
Text text series were singled out, Everyday Mathematics, and TERC, which are often cited in the Math wars as particularly troublesome curricula. Both are aligned with the controversial NCTM standards, and funded by the National Science Foundation.
The video has produced several responses defending reform mathematics, and critical of the views of parents who do not believe in teaching mathematics in ways unfamiliar to older generations.
[edit] Notes
- ^ [http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/MacDonald_Moira/2007/02/05/3531137.html Toronto Sun, February 5, 2007 "The baffling new math" by MOIRA MacDONALD
