Two memories of this math controversy in SCASD never fail to make me chuckle when I think back on them. The first was a comment posted on the CDT site after the Ed Mahon wrote his first article on the subject, entitled “The Great Math Debate”. The commenter wrote, “If you say ‘math debate’ over and over again, it sounds kind of funny.”
The second one happened at a math information session for parents last spring. The district curriculum staff were telling the parents how much fun Investigations was for their children, and a parent raised his hand and said, “You know, it’s okay if my kids don’t have so much fun if they learn some more math. They have plenty of fun at home.”
I thought of this last one frequently as I read “What’s Math Got to Do With It?” by Jo Boaler (Penguin, 2008). Boaler, a professor of math education, has a lot to say that is relevant to our math discussions in SCASD, and the District curriculum staff recently recommended her book to the Board of Directors, and it was also anonymously recommended to the Elementary Math Program Review Committee.
In general, Boaler places much more emphasis on how much fun math students have than how much math they might or might not be learning. Children in constructivist math classrooms, she reports, are “smiling and laughing” and “jump around” excitedly in sun-drenched classrooms. They sigh, “I love this class.” The teachers are “the happiest they had ever been.”
When students and teachers are denied constructivist math by “extreme traditionalist” parents, however, the party is over. Teachers who are forced to use “traditional” or “passive” approaches are “demoralized and defeated” and their “cold, disinterested, and traumatized” students sit in rows and “work in silence.”
Parents looking for evidence of the success of strict constructivist approaches won’t find much here. Boaler recommends TERC Investigations in an appendix and lists the research studies supporting the curriculum currently in use in SCASD:
Flowers, J.M. (1998). A study of proportional reasoning as it relates to the development of multiplication concepts. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Goodrow, A. M. (1998). Children’s construction of number sense in traditional, constructivist, and mixed classrooms. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Tufts University, Medford, MA.
Mokros, J., Berle-Carman, M., Rubin, A., & Wright, T. (1994). Full year pilot grades 3 and 4: Investigations in number, data, and space. Cambridge, MA: TERC.
That’s it – two unpublished dissertations and a report generated by the author of the curriculum, and not one peer-reviewed study.
Boaler describes her own research at length in “What’s Math Got To Do With It”, including a study demonstrating the benefits of constructivist math at “Railside School”. She declines to provide the real name of the school, making it difficult to evaluate her claims or conclusions. Fortunately a group of mathematicians have conducted an in-depth examination of Boaler’s research and found that “Prof. Boaler’s claims are grossly exaggerated and do not translate into success for her treatment students.” Their report can be found here.
One final point: Does anyone ever get good at anything without some hard work and, yes, even some unpleasantness? No one is suggesting that any kids ought to hate math, but it is unrealistic to expect that our kids will develop true mastery while experiencing only fun along the way.
I’ve read Boaler’s book, as well. Perhaps it would be more aptly named “What’s Excellent Math Got to Do With It”? Given the limitations of her work and “gross exaggeration” of her findings, apparently the answer is: NOT MUCH. She is tooting her own horn and trying to pull everyone else’s leg.