Reading of Battleground School Math

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The Table M.1-Dichotomies Underling Different Stances in Mathematic Education remains me of a conversation about the difference of mathematics education between China and Canada with an instructor of teacher education college from China. He said educators in China have been aware that students could be benefit from inquiry-based learning, however, because university entrance exam was very competitive and challenging, teacher focused much on teaching in a "traditional" way to help students success in the exams, and had no time spending on teaching through inquiry. I quite understand the situation since I was born and raised in China. Chinese education system and policy have a big impact on teacher's teaching method. But I also came up with a question that if the situation will not be changed in a short period, how can educators in China help student success in the university entrance exam, in the meanwhile efficiently integrating inquiry into their teaching?

The article mentioned that a need for scientific and technologically capable people due to accelerating industrialization and urbanrization in a new society in US and Canada after World War I was the most important factor that led to the Progressivist Reform. Education plays an important role in the society. Education was created or reformed in a way to better meet the needs of the society in that era.

"Polarization into conservative and progressivist........few progressivists would argue against some necessary degree of fluency in basic mathematical procedures" Sometimes an effective revolution is not about completely denying the tradition, but to combine the valuable parts of tradition with new thoughts.


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