Institutional Media and Politics Have Failed Math Education
Like many of my generation, I used to deliver newspapers door-to-door in the 70’s. The Saturday paper that I used to deliver took hours to assemble, and was often 2 inches thick. That same paper today is maybe an inch. We live in a day and age of more people and more stories, but like many institutions, their trust has been redistributed horizontally among people. So, anyone can write a story and anyone can read them.
Like this one.
I still enjoy and holding a newspaper, but there are fewer newspapers left that have writing that offers something substantially deep and informative. I mean I can “Google” something and instantly I can find various sources of a particular story. A few generations ago, radio was the main place to find out about emerging artists and new releases. I can’t even remember the last time I listened to radio for music…
Once things are in the decline, they eventually become obsolete, and no longer relevant.
When it comes to something as pointed as math education, both traditional media reporting and politics have stubbornly and ignorantly refused to change — singing the same old stupid songs about test scores, back-to-basics, job preparation, and other recycled story lines from the previous century.
Apparently, nobody gave politicians or journalists the memo that we are well into the 21st century, riding the wave of the second generation of social media, and on the cusp of full-on disruption in education. So yammering on about falling test scores about math questions that might have been relevant when the slide rule was popular is like ranting like Grandpa Simpson.
Standardized testing and its 20th century purpose of sorting, sifting, and sterilizing learning is the cloud that tired media types and politicians yell at today. It’s low hanging fruit that should have rotted to the ground, but apparently still gets plucked, rendering it embarrassingly tabloid compared to where math education and education in general is heading.
Politics is about getting votes, and one way to get votes is to scare the public about an area which is often a function of terrible miscommunication — in which blame needs to be liberally shared among everyone.
Newspapers need to sell, and one way to sell newspaper is to scare the public about an area…
One of the journalists that excels best at fear-mongering and eating these wormy apples of 20th century thinking is David Staples. He’s blocked me on Twitter, so I am hoping one of you might share this with him. The other thing you should know about David Staples is that he is a hockey writer, a decent one at that. However, like many other journalists, he has naively entered a domain in which they believe there is nothing beyond mathematics except for memorizing your times tables, eating fractions for breakfast, and excelling at long division to the point where it should be considered an Olympic sport.
Hey, don’t believe me. Just look up his articles… and political stripes.
Malpractice. I will tell you, David Staples, what is malpractice. It is your irresponsible, politically-driven, Flat Earth Society articles about math education. Stick to hockey, unless your goal is prove that your journalism is more dysfunctional than the hockey team your cover.
Until now, the only place where parents could generally find out about math education — also known as Diversionary News(coming close to Fake News) — were newspapers and writers like David Staples, who would not only yell at the cloud, but tell everyone that the it is falling…
Their ace-in-the hole has always been about playing the cheap, political “parent card”. By the way, I am also a parent of two kids. Smugly, these writers and politicians were singing the blues about math education, and there was no competition for another reality — which has far more dimensions than cliched test scores.
But, the communication of WHY and HOW children are learning mathematics in this Age of Disruption is getting markedly better. And, one of the best books to have come out to explain the scholarly research in plain and simple language to parents is the one below by Dr. Hilary Kreisberg and Dr. Matthew Beyranevand, experts in the field of Math Education, and both residents of Massachusetts. They also know something about hockey, but last time I checked, they haven’t written any articles on what the Boston Bruins need to do to improve their hockey team.
(Cough…)
I have a emailed and messaged so many times over the last decade to newspapers journalists about writing a different — a truer — narrative of math education. But, apparently, the word “Understanding” has been deleted from their lexicon. Reporting failing rates of test scores — the test themselves, ironically, are the real failure — will just sell more newspapers.
For now. The death rattle has been sounded for political and media institutions. Sure, they might still have some victories left, as indicated by the current political landscape in Canada and the US, but reporting and supporting miscommunication about math education will put you on the losing team in the very end.
Trust has been broken. But, like in thermodynamics, it cannot get destroyed. In the case of trust, it has been redistributed horizontally, peer to peer.
Unfortunately, that news has not gotten back to some journalists and most politicians. And, it never will.
The original purpose of learning mathematics when math education was first being drafted in the US was for informed citizenry in a democracy. That goal has been shaded almost into obscurity through the duplicity of media and politics.
The failure of media and politics to speak truthfully about math education has been historical. But, the self-serving ideas and inherited myopia of these institutions will eventually come home to roost. They failed to board the ship for the 21st century and now they will become full time residents of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock.
