This is an excellent article. (Why Do Americans Stink at Math? – NYTimes.com.)
Most articles that I read about school reform don’t address the fact that our higher education system must be reformed first. (I have explained my view in the category “University Education Dumbs Down High School”.)
To read the part of the article that addresses the university problem (which is independent of the subject; it could be English, history, etc…), go to the section that starts with this sentence:
“American institutions charged with training teachers in new approaches to math have proved largely unable to do it…”
Here are what I think are a couple of important qoutes from that section.
“…Without the right training, most teachers do not understand math well enough to teach it the way Lampert does…”
“…The sociologist Dan Lortie [notes that] Teachers learn to teach primarily by recalling their memories of having been taught…”
“…[There were] teachers who wanted to change, and were willing to work hard to do it, but didn’t know how…”
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