Another (small) blow against constructivist math.
Concurrently, I’ve been reading more about the current state of the American educational system. A common theme seems to be how the progressive-constructivist philosophy has by and large supplanted the traditional, instructivist methods in the classroom. This philosophy, in turn, has resulted in less and less actual learning taking place in our schools, a phenomenon I’ve noticed as a community college instructor and as a private tutor.
I didn’t put two and two together, though, until the other day, then it dawned on me: the textbooks for the courses I’ve been teaching have all been written by authors who have imbibed from the constructivist well. They’ve bought into Piaget’s odd little notion that knowledge is not “true” knowledge unless you’ve “constructed” or discovered it yourself. Aha – so that’s why these crazy books obdurately insisted on placing examples before giving any definitions or enumerating any steps. That explains that.
What a disaster constructivist math teaching has been to our local school system. Perhaps there’s a way to “do it right” but I maintain this teaching philosophy is inherently “unstable”.
