Sunil Singh Quote: Math Education Has Hit Its Iceberg. (He Might Be Right!)
Richard Andrew
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I stumbled across Sunil Singh's articles a few years ago. I thought, "OK, this guy doesn't mind speaking his mind!"
I met Sunil a few weeks back over Zoom. I think we each found an extra pea to add to our respective pods. He's inspired me to 'let rip' a bit more in my articles!
Recently, Sunil published Math Education Has Hit Its Iceberg: Institutionalized Embrace of Pedagogy and Institutionalized Disregard for Mathematics.
In my most humble of opinions, every math educator, education director, and Principal would benefit from grabbing a beverage, taking a deep breath and giving the article five minutes of undivided attention.
To Quote the B9 robot from Lost In Space - "WARNING, WARNING":
Yes, be warned ... The article is not a happy-clappy, 'Isn't math education wonderful?' read. But neither is it a teacher-bashing exercise.
Rather, Sunil aims a laser light on the dysfunction that is - generally speaking - the broader underpinnings of mathematics education today.
Here are a couple of teasers:
Mathematics is dead. Its interlaced connection to history, philosophy, music, the arts, and current endeavours is dead. In spite of its influence transcending every race, civilization, culture, and hunter-gatherer tribe over thousands of years, it seems like its resting distillate is a salty brine of overhyped delivery models, bureaucratic compliance, and now not so subtle nods to white supremacy.
Oh ... and how about this:
So ... check out Math Education Has Hit Its Iceberg: Institutionalized Embrace of Pedagogy and Institutionalized Disregard for Mathematics and 'let rip' in the comments re your thoughts, reactions and takeaways.
This could be fun!
Maths Education Specialist | Coach | Writer | Life Artist
1 年Great review of Sunil Singh’s article Richard. Lately, I can’t help but be reminded of the video clip for Pink Floyd’s song ‘another brick in the wall’ every time I think about the current state of education. It’s much easier to lead the masses when they have been indoctrinated into a single structured system. Options for this include 1. limiting education to chosen groups or 2. a cookie cutter education. The second option gives the best impersonation of a free thinking society. Look at that, you’ve made me jump onto my anarchist bandwagon ??.
Author, Speaker, Mathematics and Music Enthusiast!
1 年Humbled by your enthusiasm in sharing this article. The danger in its purest form is that almost all stakeholders in education have become incurious about actual mathematics--it's beautiful and powerful history. We no longer teach the mathematics of mathematicians. We teach only skeletal remains of it to advance agendas which are far more teacher/adult/bureaucracy facing. We have become unwilling/willing gatekeepers of mathematics, preventing our students from exploring the wonderland of numbers with unbridled enthusiasm and abandon.