Talk:Math wars

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[edit] My

My own personal bias is more toward the "traditional" teaching methods, if you want to call them that, but nonetheless I feel that this article is very slanted. I feel that "someone" (that someone will be me if I find myself with more free time available) ought to try to present the "reform" (also not a very good label) perspective. There are legitimate points to be had, such as that the traditional methods overemphasive algorithm and underemphasize actual understanding of the material.

Even though I did it here, there's got to be a better way than to use these labels and sanitize them with quotation marks. Pepper2000 03:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your sentiment. All the same, neutral does not mean presenting views equally, it means presenting the views impartially.

To improve the article, the stories of "traditional" and "reform" maths need to be told fairly, but that doesn't mean that the story will favour each equally. Reform math threw the baby out with the bath-water when it deemphasised the skills in early grades that are needed to do algebra and other things that require a basic level of skills that aren't being emphasised. It has gone on for so long, that too many teachers themselves were trapped in this thinking. There are some good things about reform maths, which basically advocated a kinder, more gentle and exploratory approach to maths. The big problem that reform maths had was that it dropped the drills, which were, in fact, vital.

I think the shape of the article should be to describe the wars, and how inflamed they were/are, and the current attempts to rescue maths, keeping what is good about reform maths, combined with the indispensible drills of traditional maths. Trishm 22:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the problem is bigger than you may think. Even facts of what a curriculum consists of is often not agreed upon. People on one side will say a certain curriculum consists of something or other while those on the opposition will insist otherwise. When I read through articles like math wars or traditional mathematics, it's very clear that the bullk of the information is written using propoganda pieces. There are a number of statements that are passed of as fact that should not be. One thing that would drastically improve the quality of these math education related articles is to remove everything that is not backed up by multiple reliable sources. --C S (Talk) 16:42, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I've reworked the article so that most statements are backed up by sources. Roseapple (talk) 15:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)