Time to re-read (or read) What’s Math Got To Do With It?

Back in June 2010, I wrote a post to this blog in which I summarized a new book on K-12 mathematics teaching by a former Stanford colleague of mine, Prof Jo Boaler. At the time, though I had met Jo a few times, I did not really know her; rather I was just one of many mathematical educators who simply admired her work, some of which she described in the book What's Math Got To Do With It?, parts of which were the primary focus of my post.

Not long after my post appeared, Jo returned to Stanford from the UK, and over time we got to know each other better. When I formed my mathematics educational technology company BrainQuake in 2012, I asked her to be a founding member of its Board of Academic Advisors, all of whom are listed here. When she was putting the final touches to the new edition of her book, just published, she asked me to write a cover-quote, which I was pleased to do.

I say all of this by way of disclosure.* For my primary aim in writing this month’s column is to persuade you to read (or re-read) my earlier post, and ideally Jo’s book. The research findings she describes in the book highlight the lasting damage done to generations of K-12 students (and possibly consequent damage to the US economy when that generation of students enters the workforce) by continuing adherence to a classroom mathematics pedagogy that portrays math as a rule-based process of answer-getting, rather than a creative enterprise of understanding and problem solving.

The woefully ill-informed “debate” about the benefits of the US Common Core State Mathematics Standards that has been fostered in between the appearances of the two editions of Boaler’s book, make her message even more important than it was when the first edition came out in 2009. While CCSS opponents espouse opinions, Boaler presents evidence – lots of it – that supports the approach to K-12 mathematics learning the CCSS promotes.

If you want to see more of Prof Boaler’s efforts to improve K-12 mathematics education, see her teachers’ resource site YouCubed, or sign up for her online course How to Learn Math: for Teachers and Parents, which starts on June 16.

Also, check out her latest post in The Hechinger Report where she presents some recent data about the problems caused by a lot of old-style rule-memorization math instruction.

* NOTE: Prof Boaler’s Stanford research team also recently completed a small pilot study of BrainQuake’s mathematics learning (free-) app Wuzzit Trouble, first reported by education technology journalist Jordan Shapiro in an April 27, 2015 article in Forbes Magazine. (Prof Boaler is an academic advisor to BrainQuake but does so as a volunteer, and has no financial stake in the company.)