Comments on: We won’t fix math education without fixing math stigma

By: Biotunes

Biotunes — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:37:00 +0000

You are a commenter after my own heart. You may be interested in this post which delves right into just this problem:

http://www.biotunes.org/bioblog/2007/10/why-public-doesnt-get-science.html

By: Elderbear

Elderbear — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:54:00 +0000

Never mind the failure to teach math. Who taught those math teachers to write?!? Paragraphs such as those you cited make the lovers of the English language (or "American" as the Turkish Sultan decreed it during WWI) yearn to have been born as native speakers of Old Norse, Amharic, or Samodeic.

During my years as a research engineer, I learned that until I could clearly explain a concept without jargon, I didn't truly understand it. Your article seems to verify this in the case of Advisory Panel.

PS: I have an Albert Einstein action figure ...

By: Biotunes

Biotunes — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:43:00 +0000

Thanks for the kind words – though I actually wish they were way off base. It is such a shame that teachers who care like you feel they have to leave the profession out of frustration. This just reiterates the point that endless discussions about “how” to teach various subjects as pointless as discussing how to develop a piece of land when one refuses to spend the money to buy it in the first place.

By: Karen

Karen — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:26:00 +0000

This is a fabulous article. I felt as if I were reading an article that I’d written myself. I have been a math teacher in California for 15 years and have recently left high-school teaching motivated by the difficulty of dealing with the issues that you mention in your article.