Does teaching math have to be a war?

One could say I grew up straddling the two sides of the so-called “Math War.” Up until sixth grade, I attended a school that taught traditional math basics. I sweated through timed quizzes, was docked points for failing to show a certain step in long division and, to this day, if someone threw a Koosh ball at me while stating a standard math problem, I probably could make like Pavlov’s dog and recite the answer.

In sixth grade, however, I switched schools and math became a completely different ballgame. Suddenly, my assignments involved creating problems that illustrated broad math concepts. I was tasked with breaking down my old math quizzes and instead of merely answering the questions, I had to illustrate why I chose my answer and why it was correct. We “worked” from a textbook in the loosest sense of the word, and there was significantly more talking in math class than I had ever experienced before.

That year, my head spun round. And when I read this column in Time, I understood why: I had just been on both sides of a national policy battleground.

According to Time, “American education is every bit as polarized, red and blue, as American politics. On the crimson, conservative end of the spectrum are those who adhere to the back-to-basics credo: Kids, practice those spelling words and times tables, sit still and listen to the teacher; school isn't meant to be fun—hard work builds character. On the opposite, indigo extreme are the currently unfashionable ‘progressives,’ who believe that learning should be like breathing—natural and relaxed, that school should take its cues from a child's interests.”

The article is a good synthesis of the current battle being fought over America’s math curriculum, providing a history of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics from their 1989 standards (blamed for the creation of "fuzzy math") to their more focused set of critical points of “focal points” that are now being labeled as "back-to-basics."

Here in Washington, these "wars" are being fought on local battlegrounds as well. These questions from concerned parents about a presentation made at a community math night, and answers from the presenter, math expert Ruth Parker, represent a good case in point.

But as we've said many times before, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. We're just struggling to find it. I hope one day, instead of the "red" pushing the pendulum one way and the "blue" pushing it the other, we can figure out a way to wave the white flag and let it rest calmly and effectively in the middle.