History of Mathematics Education in North America

Mayan invented the use of zero

1556 – Spanish

Before 1700 – 11 math books published

1703 – 1^st book math content in English “Young Secretarial’s Assistant”

1729 -1^st arithmetic text book Greenway Method,  School Master’s Assistant, Pike’s arithmetic

1821- 1894 Rise of the University - Rousou Froebel

1839 – 1^st Public normal school in MA

1898 – First Teacher's College - Columbia

1896 – University of Nebraska - Lincoln

1895 – Graduate College oldest West of the Mississippi

1821 – Colburn’s Arithmetic

1920-1930 Learning Theory as theTeaching of “Mental Discipline.” Mind made up of faculties and the more it was used the stronger they became (memory muscles) this was known as Faculty Psychology
Thorndike at Columbia University destroy this theory with his experiments.

Brownel advocated practical knowledge

1920 Reform, decreasing enrollments, the depression, pragmatism, and the lack of interest in memorization lead to the idea that meaning needs to be taught.

1950’s Meaning VS. drill

WW II draftees were found to be inadequate in their education - Steelman report – need technicians, engineers, scientists

Study at Columbia found that 80% of the students who could do (x+y)² = x² + 2xy + y² ; couldn't do (u + t)² = t ² + 2ut + t ² or (40+2)² = 40 ² + 2*40*2 + 2 ²

UIC5m

University of Illinois Commission on School Mathematics lead by Max Beberman created an excellent high school curriculum for college bound students.

Then the Illinois Arithmetic Project headed by David Page created an elementary curriculum

1952 both were comleted and had the discovery method built in.

1957 Sputnik – World War II, felt education needed help, were we a backward country? When the US rocket was launched to try to catch the Russians it blew up. Blame was put squarely on the schools.

NeededTechnology - created the National Science Foundation for the purposeto enhance science.

It was given $ to create workshops to help teachers iin high schools, then junior high schools and elementary. 1977

SMSG School Mathematics Study Group headed by Ed Begle from Stanford University decided that to improve student learning of mathematics the curriculum could be improved by improving the texts.

Thought they could write an imporced text in a summer , try it the following school year and revise it the next summer.

1965 Every major Publishing co. was publishing copies of math books.

1965 Solid Geometry dropped was dropped down to 10th grade & not hit good enough.

1962 - 1963 – Modern Math

Madison Project – Robert Davis

Ball State Project -

GCMP Greater Cleveland Math Project

Bring school curriculum in line with mathematics because math had changed

1970 - Publishing Companies were publishing their 3^rd generation of math books

There was interest in individual students, accountability, and a counter revolution that lead to a Back to the basics Movement

1975 NACOME - Report

1980 Prism Project – Survey with Recommendations as a result of the project

Problem Solving, Piaget, Ganya, Bruner, Modern Math – Abstract

There were now 57-62 different text books and they were rapidly changeing

More talk about our Technological edge and money was being taken out of education creating a time bomb while other countries were dumping money into eduation.

The number of Secondary schools all over the country were decreasing their requirements for math

1985 A Nation at Risk

1989 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics published their first Standards Book.

Robert Sweetland's Notes ©