Barack Obama chose Jeanne Century as one his educational advisors. John Dewey has an open letter to Barack in Ed News.
It starts out…
I am very distressed to learn about your selection of Jeanne Century as one of your education advisors. She is director of the science program of University of Chicago’s Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education (CEMSE), an organization which has been heavily involved with a horrificly lacking mathematics program called Everyday Mathematics—in fact, one of the co-directors of CEMSE was one of the developers of the program.
My oldest child got the full brunt of the Everyday math movement. What a total waste of time, money and resources. Here’s Ms. Century’s instructions on how to handle Everyday math holdouts…
“You may have teachers in your school who are not at all interested in exploring ways to change their practice. If you have such resisters, it is important to do everything you can to persuade them to participate.
Listen to their concerns, give them the professional development and materials necessary, and provide them with encouragement. There will always be people who are simply shut down to change. But the change can happen without them. Don’t focus too much of your energy on these individuals, for you don’t want to neglect those who are ready and willing. The reluctant ones will eventually need to come on board but at the beginning it is more important to make sure support is available for those who want it. Still, if you think resistant teachers are going to actively undermine your progress, you may wish to consider exploring ways to remove them from your school. You may find that the teacher is just as happy to leave the school as you may be to see him/her go.”
John Dewey a mathematics major goes on to say…
I have a degree in mathematics –that’s mathematics, not math education—and I take the subject seriously, as well as how it is taught. I have chosen to go into teaching because I see that math education is in a crisis and I would like to do my part to help open doors for students instead of the current practice of slamming them shut forever.That said, I’m afraid that I would qualify as one of the “resisters” mentioned in the above cited paragraph, if the type of teaching being advocated is inquiry based (student centered) and/or the curricula are any of several of those developed under grants from NSF. My daughter had Everyday Math in her elementary school and I worked with her at night to ensure she learned and mastered what was not being taught in her classes. I can assure you that the poor quality of Everyday Math had nothing to do with the quality of her teachers, and everything to do with the curriculum.
