One Point of View: Accomplishments of the 1980sAuthor(s): Stephen S. WilloughbySource: The Arithmetic Teacher, Vol. 36, No. 1 (September 1988), p. 11Published by: National Council of Teachers of MathematicsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41194329 .

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One Point of XTkzoD

Accomplishments of the 1980s By Stephen S. Willoughby

Typical of the 1980s is the fact that I was asked to write this evaluation of the 1980s two years before the decade ends. We have been quick to talk about our goals and accomplishments but slow to make meaningful change.

The decade began five years after the Euclid Conference, NACOME, and the NCSM basic skills list had pointed the way to a richer, more meaningful mathematics curriculum. Subsequent reports and recommenda- tions have emanated from the NCTM, the Conference Board of the Mathe- matical Sciences, various governmen- tal agencies, and others.

We have been quick to talk about our accomplishments but slow to make meaningful change.

If you visit a typical mathematics classroom anywhere in the United States, you will be hard-pressed to distinguish its methods and content from those of the 1960s, the 1940s, or the 1920s. Teachers are still underpaid and overworked. Textbooks and tests still emphasize the memorization of low-level skills and trivial facts. Cal- culators are conspicuous by their ab- sence. If computers are present, they are likely to be used as expensive, glitzy flash cards.

However, exceptions can be found. Some local communities and states

Stephen Willoughby is professor of mathemat- ics and serves on the faculty at the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721. He is chairman of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents and senior author of the K-8 Real Math textbook series published by Open Court.

have made progress in raising teach- ers' compensation, but few, if any, have improved professional condi- tions. Some excellent, challenging textbooks have been written, but they are being used in few classrooms. Some states are developing tests that emphasize thinking, communication, and other important skills, but mini- mal-competency tests, which are in- deed minimizing competency, are the mode. Several forward-looking states and communities have furnished cal- culators for all pupils and some even allow the use of calculators on tests, but they are the exceptions.

The mathematics education profes- sion can do little to correct serious negative social conditions that impede learning, but we can change content and methods. Why have we done so little?

Many circumstances inhibit mean- ingful change:

1 . Lack of teacher time to evaluate textbooks and prepare to teach new and better materials is a serious prob- lem.

2. The tradition of adopting a whole K-8 series at one time prevents new upper-grade texts from being substan- tially more advanced than the old un- less all concerned people realize that completing the book by the end of the year is less important than the quan- tity and quality of content learned.

3. Penny- wise cost cutters encour- age the adoption of quickly, cheaply produced, untested, disjointed, cos- metically fashionable "best sellers" instead of carefully developed, inno- vative, field-tested programs that have been proved effective and that integrate all important strands, includ-

ing problem solving, thinking, and communication.

To me, a major part of the difficulty is a false egalitarianism that seems to pervade most of our decisions in edu- cation. This phenomenon takes many forms:

Minimal-competency tests are indeed minimizing competency.

1 . Some of our teachers can't teach the better program (that is, they'd have to work at teaching); therefore, we won't adopt it. _JL Some of our pupils can't learn

this material (that is, they'd have to work at learning), so we won't adopt it.

3. All textbooks are equal, so it's unfair to choose one just because it is clearly better than the others.

4. Tests should be designed so ev- erybody scores above average; any test that distinguishes between those who have and haven't learned is un- fair. And the list goes on.

What we need is a true egalitarian- ism in which everybody is given an equal chance to succeed and is ex- pected to do so. Rather than limiting everybody's goals to those of the least ambitious, we must set our goals high and expect everybody to achieve them. And we must offer help to all who need help to succeed.

More than a year is left in the 1980s. We can accomplish more than we have. Let's try. m

September 1988 , 11

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