This article gave me a new perception of the changing nature of math education in North America and made me realize that politics can have a profound effect on education. The first point that intrigued me was the two different camps of thought on math education. It is easy to see that conservatives are more focused on instrumental learning and progressives are more focused on relevance, but they are not completely opposed to each other, as Gerofsky says, there are some actual common grounds between the two camps.
The second point I found interesting was that as I read every educator's expression of what they would like to see in an educational environment, I thought Dewey's ideas were most in line with what I perceived to be the state of many schools in North America right now, but I was shocked to learn that Dewey's suggestions have never actually been adopted on a large scale by North American schools. But at the same time, it also clearly confirmed my thoughts about my previous educational experiences, that for China (the country that all of my educational experiences happened before college), it needs to educate to the test rather than to have fun, and that children in that environment (e.g., high population density, jobs that are not evenly distributed to everyone, but still a socialist country) need to learn to change the environment they were in, which is also why the New Math movement had worldwide influence once it gained momentum, because the political situation at the time made it so that their view was that every child was a potential future rocket scientist.
The third thing that stopped me was that the anxiety of the low TIMSS rankings triggered a desire to return to traditional teaching standards for math, and it was clear that there was no way to strike a balance, and I don't think that the rankings are proof that an education system is good or bad, and in the case of the two very different educations that I've experienced, the focus of each system is not the same, so there is no difference between the two. There is no comparison between the two. At the same time, the kinds of problems that have been going on since the nineties have made me realize that the political economy has a restraining effect on education, so shouldn't we remove the politics and make education more pure and focused on the children?
It’s challenging to completely separate education from politics because political decisions influence many aspects of the education system, such as funding, curriculum, and access. While a more child-centered approach is ideal, politics often shape how those educational resources and opportunities are distributed. It's an ongoing balancing act, but your point about focusing more on the needs of children is a crucial reminder of what should be at the heart of education.
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