My thoughts on the vitriol directed at Jo Boaler: She is coming against generations of educators who have been pushing more math, higher level math to younger and younger kids, often forcing kids to cram over a years worth of math into one or more grade levels just so they can reach calculus before they graduate. We can do all this better. We have put so many burdens on kids and teachers in this frantic race to give the brightest kids accelerated instruction that no one is seeing the ramifications. Let kids be kids. If we want all kids to have access to Calculus and higher level math, then adjust these arcane schedules to allow more flexibility for that. Way too many kids are being pushed into these higher level courses too soon because of societal pressures to be the 'best' ...the "powers that be" despise Boaler, because she exposes the underlying motives that underpin all these systems that hurt kids and cultivate our societies' hatred for math. We rank and sort and compare ourselves to each other with a blatant disregard for the damage done to kids. We must do better.
CEO at Mindprint Learning
2wWe agree! We always recommend ST Math when we see students with variability in complex reasoning skills. Our stronger visual reasoning students do so much better with ST Math