I am sitting out on my mother’s deck in beautiful North Carolina, enjoying the sunny weather, 70 degree temperature, and dive-bombing humming birds. Yes, I am being attached by humming birds! One just flew to within three feet of my head, stopped, buzzed for about five seconds and then quickly departed. The assault on my physical well being and overloaded senses is making it difficult to concentrate on Engaging Young Children in Mathematics.
A bit “heady” but still accessible in the ways that scholarly journals aren’t, Engaging Young Children in Mathematics describes a research-based set of standards and learning trajectories for developing Pre-K to Grade 2 students’ mathematical understanding. The authors rely heavily on the blueprint provided by the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000), an oft-cited vision for K12 mathematics instruction, while deconstructing its deficiencies and throwing state standards “out the door.”
All individuals concerned with educational standards must conscientiously distinguish two types of standards. One type prescribes standards as requirements for mastery. The second type promotes standards as a vision of excellence. An example of the former is the use of standards in making high-stakes decisions such as retaining students in a grade or determining teachers’ salaries. An example of the latter is the vision of mathematics education in the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000). There is a substantial and critical difference between standards as a vision of excellence and standards as narrow and rigid requirements for mastery. Only the former, including flexible guidelines and ways to achieve learning goals, is appropriate for early childhood mathematics education at the national level (pp. 8-9).
The authors go on to say that that the “vision of excellence” embodied within the NCTM standards, although a better vehicle for promoting mathematical understanding than typical state standards’ twisted test-based classification, is deficient:
Fundamental questions for teachers are what to teach, when to teach it, and how to teach it meaningfully. For goals to truly be useful guides, they need to be more closely connected to age/grade levels than are those in NCTM’s visionary PSSM.
And you know what? This makes sense.
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