Evolution of Math

By: Daisy Schwimmer

The evolution of math has come a long way, but it hasn't always been the best way of teaching since the beginning. This Thursday there was a get together at the Oregon Convention Center; the focus is the Association of Middle Level Education. I had the opportunity to sit in on a couple of workshops and I chose The Evolution of Math and Teaching for one of them. I learned that math has come a long way, and me being a student made me realize that there have been changes, slight, but noticeable.

The teacher was telling us about how in the 60s, math equations were very simple and straight to the point. Maybe just a little too much though, schools all around were noticing that kids seemed to be getting bored and their grades dropping. That's why by the 70s schools started to use "New Math", new math seemed to be helping a tiny bit and was making kids use common core more often.

By the 90s technology was starting to infest the world of math, getting used to using more technology was hard to do. So teachers had to start making problems harder, the problem 90-180 might have seemed too easy, plugging it in to the calculator would not take any thinking at all, 90-180=-90 and it's over just like that. Teachers wanted kids to be able to think but use technology at the same time; common core started taking place. Today, a kid might come across a problem like this: a builder agrees to add a square section to a deck that has an area of 128 square feet, draw a diagram of how this can happen.

Just sitting in on a few conferences has given me a better insight on teaching and a teacher's life.