Experiencing School Mathematics - Forward

As I made myself comfortable in the silent reading area of the QEII I opened Jo Boaler's book expecting to finally find something of interest (knowing of course that Mary surely would put an intriguing selection on the syllabus) to us as math teachers - something practical for us to ponder and reflect on, a story that will enlighten us as to how we do things ourselves, and yes, an opportunity for reflection of our own system and of ourselves. I didn't need to go beyond Schoenfeld's brillant forward to realize that this would be exactly what I'd find. Even though I'm relatively new to the profession I was aware through my practice and studies it is veru difficult to find longitudinal studies of this nature in a multifaceted manner. Alas a study of not just the students but also the teachers. His forward grabbed me and ignited an interest insdie me to read further, to become informed on the nature of the issues, the results she found, and hopefully answers to "What Can We Do About It Now?"

His praise for her scholarly work ix z terrific stepping stone to keep the reader engaged in discovering what it is she has to say. As a teacher I put myself right there, aware of which school it is I was a part of, more certain of which school I wanted to be a part of. His forward was very informative in introducing my ignorant self to a different way of mathematical instruction, through sets, with many options in a decentralized type of education system. Familiar with preparation for standardized testing I knew instantly "this book is for me." We, as teachers here in NL are slaves to the system, robots pushing through a curriculum to cover it before the June plague hits our students and ourselves. This forward held fo rme the promise that finally, substantial, reasonable, unequivocal evidence exists that "students who receive project-based instruction that does not focus on skills learn more mathematics than students receiving traditional skills-based instruction." He brought up the old-age issues of gender vs. math performance which I look forward to reading about.

By including verbatim quotes from Boaler's book, Schoenfeld gives us a glimse into the brillant research and conclusions she has made over the three year period. He executes justification for reading the book (to the American audience) beautifully by explicitly stating the universality of the themes. We know these schools could exist in anytown. We know our children could be the victims and product of such a system. As our eyes go down the page we realize that her findings are relevant, are real to ongoing educational debates that are forever purging our classrooms of children, our moral as educators, and our system as a whole.

Alan Schoenfel, I will definitely read on!

SAW