BATTLE GROUND SCHOOLS

Summary And reflection on "BATTLEGROUND SCHOOL"

Summary:- The whole article adresses standards of math curriculum and teaching criteria followed during last sanctury.Primarily,it shows a clash betwwen prgressivists and conservatives for standards of knowledge of math from a teacher to a student.

The Progressivist form during(1910-1940) was influenced by pre media era and the only purpose was to learn basics of Mathematics and the fluency without critical knowledge of the topic.AS the society changed, the Industrialisation reformed the era of new math upto 1960s.During that period "Space race" became a national issue and Ameriacan realised a lack of qualified and educated scientists.After reforms Chicago movement unified Algebra and Geometry during early 1960s.
It was John Dewey who introduced the concept of knowing and doing. He recognised that the process of experimentation and inquiry was difficult than simple lectures.He advocated the development of high quality mental processes and a scientific attitude.Initially his ideas were not accepted across north american schooling, but lator on Deweys' methods for Programming the Environment were put into practice in some classrooms.In the post war period it was realized by Americans that USSR beating the United space in space race.

After post war period School mathematics study group (SMCG)started a movement and in colaboration of National council of Mathematics Teachers (NCTM)efforts were done for rewriting the math curriculam in United States that resulted into a rejection of Geometry where as Set Theory,Algebra,Calculus and other topics were selected to be taught throughout K-12 system.So the movement gained momentum worldwide .But there were problems regarding familarity of topics among many teachers and movement came to an end by early 1970s.

In the mid 1980s NCTM created its own standards.The development of curriculum,course for teachers and involvement of parents and educational technology were the main features.The revised eddition of this was published in 2000.Where as Recent publication of NCMTs'new focal point has pulished in 2006.

REFLECTION:- I feel serious battles for Mathematics curriculum and teaching techniques are still continue. A number of ammendments in math curricula has already been done still there is a need of critical evaluation of the contents.Future teachers can play a major role in raising standarads of mathematical learning by adopting creative techniques of teaching mathematics in their classrooms.