RE: Battleground Schools

The article Battleground Schools points out the polarization of mathematics education that happened in North America. I stopped in wonder who finds the polarization problematic: Is it the teacher's wish to educate students in a certain way?; Do students find math education either too rigorous or too easy?; or is it the students' parents who say that the math education needs to find some sort of a middle ground in the two extreme ends? With a little bit off the main point as a reader, I then realize that the article in fact tackles all representatives and how they come to form the political opinions around the mathematics education. The important point of the article is though that there are conflicting views on how education should be taught and explains how the polarization in each extreme ends sought and implemented the curriculums once held strongly by one's political standpoint. Hence, I stopped in speculating what efforts did each side put in reforming math education. The answer comes out right after, starting from the side of progressivists and how the math education has been developed from their efforts. Their collective efforts have formulated around creating a inquiry learning and the process of experimentation. Then, the details into which how inquiry process can be carried out in the math curriculum have been quite a wonder to me, making me stop reading for a short moment. Then, the article begins with the explanation of what inquiry is. The inquiry process as bearing uncertain result yet encouraging a creative thinking has been a main focus of development in its math education. As a result, the math education has been developed by creating an environment where students can thrive not in fearing but in recreating the world of mathematics through different approaches to problem solving and applying it in new situations. There were obstacles though in that the media portrays mathematics as a ranking and compartmentalize each country by their math scores rather than the level of inquiry and the process in which mathematics is taught. This last piece was fascinating to me because it illustrates the degree in which mathematics education loses its autonomy through media can be quite substantial.