Response: Battleground Schools

I thought about a couple things as I was reading through the article:

-I didn't realize that "New Math" was a specific historical shift in maths education. I always thought it was a timeless concept about how parents have trouble teaching their kids math as the curriculum changes over time, rather than something specific to the 60's. I mainly remember seeing New Math represented in The Incredibles 2 (which makes more sense now given that the movie is also set in the 60's), but never in a non-fiction context.

-I found it funny to learn that the origin of New Math was as a result of competition with Soviet Union. Specifically; how the United States felt that their math education was inadequate upon learning of the launch of the Soviet Sputnik Satellite and how it led them to reform their curriculum. I can only assume that this is an oversimplification of all the reasons for the reform, but I do like thinking about how a patriotic rivalry could result in a complete reform of maths education.

-I thought about the central dichotomy of "conservative" and "progressive" approaches to maths education and how it connects to the Skemp article. I felt that there were a lot of similarities between the conservative view and instrumental understanding, as well as a progressive view and relational understanding. Table M.1 lists the conservative view of nature of student work as "absorbing and applying facts" and the progressive view as "inquiry and sense-making," which nearly exactly match the definitions of instrumental and relational understanding respectively from the Skemp article. It's clear that this is a very fundamental conflict in maths education that we should always be considering as teachers. Perhaps the way to think about it is that these forms of "understanding" are just one piece of a larger overall philosophy or perspective of maths education.