Are we off the track in teaching mathematical concepts?

Summary

The whole child

After centuries with little change in the mathematics curriculum in schools, we find ourselves in an era of ‘New Math’, typified by the teaching of concepts. At the same time, though many children find they can go much further and faster ahead, the great majority are confused, turned off, and fearful of the subject. What are the real causes of this failure? Research studies, with control groups and statistics, do not go deep enough. We must study individual children, work with them in the classroom, to discover bit by bit what the basic problems besetting them are, and how to overcome them. In brief, our focus has been too much on the subject matter, not enough on the child himself. Through various examples, we will see the manifold ways in which good ideas, put into practice, go wrong, and will look for roads to improvement. We must keep coming back to the whole child as the main focus. When we think of concepts, they must be end results, expressed first in the child's terms. But more than anything else, we discover what an extraordinary being a young person is, capable of learning, in his own ways, with eagerness and speed; we must promote this, not suppress it.