Progressive education was anti-algebra

For some reason, I missed this episode in the history of progressive education. (I need to finally read Left Back.)

William Heard Kilpatrick, one of the most influential pedagogical figures of the early twentieth century, would have felt right at home in today’s educational culture wars. Back then, as now, the traditionalist defense of math education came from the idea that the subject created order and discipline in the minds of young students. The child who could solve a geometric proof, for example, would carry that logic and work ethic into his professional life, even if it did not entail any numbers at all. Kilpatrick, a popular reformer who was known as the “million-dollar professor,” not for his salary but for the huge tuition-paying crowds his lectures drew, dismissed that idea. Algebra and geometry, he believed, should not be widely taught in high schools because they were an “intellectual luxury,” and “harmful rather than helpful to the kind of thinking necessary for ordinary living.” Not everyone was going to need or even have the intelligence to complete an algebra course, Kilpatrick reasoned. Why bother teaching it to them?

[snip]

Kilpatrick’s ideas were taken up by the progressivist movement in education, a powerful force in the early twentieth century inspired by the work of the philosopher John Dewey and guided by a set of principles that included “freedom for children to develop naturally,” “interest as the motive of all work,” and “teacher as guide, not taskmaster.” These ideas had their roots in the University of Chicago but ultimately went mainstream when they were championed by professors at the Columbia University Teachers College, where Kilpatrick and Dewey taught. The coalition of anti-math parents and academics had a steady influence on education policy for decades. From the start of the twentieth century to after the Second World War, the percentage of high-school students enrolled in algebra fell. In 1909, roughly fifty-seven per cent of high-school students were enrolled in algebra. By 1955, that number had been cut by more than half to about twenty-five per cent.

How Math Became an Object of the Culture Wars by Jay Caspian King, The New Yorker, 15 Nov. 2022.

John Dewey and the citizen child

From an interesting essay on John Dewey by John Fennelly:

Largely responsible for the positive reception of Dewey’s pedagogical principles was concern over the profoundly changing social and economic environment, especially the rapid growth of cities. . . . Schools, in Dewey’s vision, emerged as the premier mechanism for preserving democratic arrangements.

. . . . Traditional practices such as routine conveyance of subject matter, teacher-centeredness, rote memorization, neat rows of desks, and a quiet classroom had to be abandoned because they were not only out of step with the times but also encouraged undemocratic habits and attitudes. 

So apparently Dewey believed one should educate children in civics the same way progressive education educates students in math and science: not by learning civics (or math or science) via instruction, practice, and testing, but by doing civics via group problem solving.

Guide, side, teach, tell

Barry Garelick’s Out on Good Behavior: Teaching Math While Looking Over Your Shoulder (Katharine reviewed it here) is a terrific book: funny, affecting, and real. One of my favorite passages, from the Introduction and Dedication:

I want to share some advice I received from Ellen, one of my two “parole officers” whom you will meet in this book….

“Students have more faith in something they think they came up with than something the teacher tells them.”

…Some teachers have told me that they are not allowed to answer a student’s question directly. In fact, the quote from Ellen was her response to my question of why it’s acceptable for students to show other students how to do a problem, but it’s not acceptable if a teacher does so….

From time to time, however, most, if not all, teachers will answer a student’s question by telling them what they need to know in order to solve a problem. And most, if not all, teachers (myself included) feel guilty doing this, because we are taught that that’s giving away the answer and we are handing it to the student, or to put it in more educational terminology: “teaching by telling.”

The Hundred Years’ War.

Weekly roundup of favorite posts

Here are some of our favorite posts from the past week (and a bit back)

Common Sense Media on cell phone use (hat tip, David Fortin)

Angie and Emily Hanford on Balanced Literacy

• Balanced Literacy: Hello, Walls!
• widely used reading curriculum is failing kids

Greg Ashman on the virtues of copying sentences

Greg Ashman and Jennifer Buckingham on Structured Word Inquiry:

• no evidence for phonics?
• SWI fails a key test
• the sophisticated world of SWI
• curiouser and curiouser
• the grass is not greener

Fordham Institute on

• access to gifted education
•  the history of desegregation
• America’s math woes

See Sth Say Sth on

• Palo Alto’s Achievement Gap
• What Does Stanford Have to Do With the Dismal PISA Results

Brightbeam on the secret shame of progressive cities

Lo

Constructivism has come to corporate training.

I’m probably the last to know.

Walking the walk instead of talking the talk

I’ve just finished teaching my latest crop of ed school students, and I’ve been puzzling over two trends in education. These trends aren’t exactly new, but, for some reason, it hadn’t occurred to me until now the degree to which they’re in hopeless contradiction. Think irresistible force hitting immovable object. The one: most instructors spend most of their time being guides on the side rather than sages on stages. The other: most students no longer get through most of the assigned readings.

Stop making sense

I had a funny moment last night… I had the TV on in the background while I was dealing with the dogs, fixing their food bowls & the like, also cooking spinach because spinach is my new Health Plan … 

Point is, I wasn’t paying attention to the television.

And I happened to catch a line. 

Alex Trebek was interviewing the contestants, and I heard one saying (this is close to a direct quote): “. . . so I assign a lot of projects. They do a lot of independent learning. I guide from the side.”

That was the contestant’s wrap-up. 

I guide from the side.

And that was it, back to the game. No particular reaction from Alex, who, I think it’s fair to say, did not look enthusiastic. Then again, he didn’t look unenthusiastic, necessarily, either. 

Two thoughts popped into my head at the exact same moment, then ping-ponged back and forth, vying for dominance. (Maybe spinach will fix that.)

My first thought: Common Core doesn’t seem to have put much of a dent in constructivism. Not that it was supposed to, really, but CC did have instructivist elements. Plus a friend of mine, who teaches in the city, tells me kids there are now being taught phonics, so I was thinking there’d been some progress.

But maybe not.

Maybe it’s constructivism that’s on the rise.

I’ve always found it telling that no one ever calls himself, or herself, a constructivist. Yet here was a young teacher announcing, on national television, that he’s a guide on the side. He didn’t sound defensive.

Anyway, that was my first thought.

Constructivism, still here.

Possibly more here.

My second thought: You’re on Jeopardy, bub.

Jeopardy, for pete’s sake !

People win Jeopardy by spending hours and hours and hours memorizing stuff.

Then, after they win on Jeopardy, they post Jeopardy book lists to help other people memorize stuff. 

There is no constructivist path to victory on Jeopardy.  

I don’t get it. 

The contestant ended up losing pretty badly, which–I won’t lie–I enjoyed, but not before giving me a scare when he pulled into 2nd place after correctly answering a couple of big-ticket questions while his two opponents flubbed theirs. 

But in the end he closed out the game with $500. 

Compared to the winner, who had $13,601.

Bonus points: I read a journal article on neoliberalism the other day, which pointed out that no one ever calls himself a neoliberal, either. Hah! I guess not. Of course, maybe I’ll turn on Jeopardy tomorrow and hear a contestant telling Alex he’s always been a big fan of the Phillips curve, ever since he was a little kid.

A gigantic pyramid scheme

It was the opening sentence of an Opinion piece in last week’s Philadelphia Inquirer that first caught my eye:

Ask students what year Columbus sailed the ocean blue and they’ll likely respond with “1492!”

I’m guessing that most students these days have no idea when Columbus sailed over here. After all, as yesterday’s Washington Post reports, two-thirds of millennials don’t know what Auschwitz is, and 22% “haven’t heard of the Holocaust or are not sure whether they’ve heard of it.”