You’ll find a stash of my postings on math-teach (Forum 206), a so-called listserv hosted by the Math Forum on the internet.
I’m hoping the archive is still around when you find this Medium posting, as many besides me poured their hearts and souls into it.
However the repartee was often acrimonious, mixed with jokes and wry humor. We fought the Math Wars. We did some math. The powers that be found they no longer had a budget for endless war. They’d keep the lights on in the museum, for future tourists.
Nowadays, everything has become politicized thanks to Youtubers (and others) helping everyone connect the dots.
Resistance to any one particular curriculum is almost guaranteed to run high, if parents stay suspicious of it.
“Don’t experiment on my kids!” goes the injunction. However there’s no avoiding the fact that we’re always experimenting, including with serving some status quo.
Sometimes we serve a status quo well passed the pull date (meaning after it’s stale or no otherwise no longer savory). Surrendering to inertia has its price.
A big experiment in Common Core Standards in Mathematics (CCSM) was to restrict itself to Base 10. I could not, in good conscience, sign on to such an agenda.
