GROUPTHINK Is The Agenda
From the 30s at least there was an interest in “the new man”. George Counts wrote: “Dare The School Build A New Social Order?” Carleton Washburne, a school superintendent, travelled the world, then wrote: “Remaking Mankind” reporting how different nations viewed education and the state.
In 1952 Raymond A Bauer produced: “The New Man In Soviet Psychology”.
The point is that educators are and were deeply involved in — not only educating, but also “transforming” society and man and the group — mostly in the direction of being useful and obedient to the state. Often posed as “the common good”. What we have today is considerable effort to play down “the individual” and favor the group.
Groupthink is both the method and the desired outcome. Parents of university students report that convocation speeches often project these messages. One parent heard the president actually say: “We all know that groups think better than individuals alone.”
Of course, our topic here is Math and how group work and discovery methods are interfering with the learning of the basics. Experiential learning, collaboration and the rest of the 21st Century competencies (note the word competencies, not skills) are the talking points of new curriculums. It’s the collective, not the individual, which is to be developed.
A 1999 book by Lieberman and Miller: “Teachers Transforming Their World and Their Work” emphasizes community-building to even include parents. Now, that’s a change!
And don’t let’s forget, we’re not in the olden days anymore. We now have technology, pre-loaded IPads and gaming to bring forth “the new man” ! Are plummeting academic scores the only time we ask fundamental questions about what our public schools are doing?
[I’m writing from Canada. Same problem.]
[This comment was published last night at http://www.sgvtribune.com/opinion/20160902/does-common-core-add-up-for-californias-math-students-guest-commentary ]
[Also a comment to Globe and Mail about Math decline in Ontario, Anna Stokke article http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/ontarios-math-system-is-broke-so-why-isnt-the-government-fixing-it/article31664784/ ]