I just read this article, Does America’s Math Curriculum Add Up? It says we should teach more “data analysis and problem solving; and linear equations.” This made me think of my freshman year in high school in 1961. The teacher told us we were only taking algebra to get into college. Most of us would never put algebra to any practical use, but all of us would benefit from going to college. I obviously remembered that conversation from nearly 60 years ago. Sounds like it is still true today. The article goes on to tell how difficult it is to get the public and many colleges to accept this new math reality. They want algebra and geometry, just like they had in high school.
This made me think about other subjects, like history. There are so many historical names, places, and dates that every students should know. Would any U.S. History course be complete without a unit on the great Wobblies movement, founded in 1905, or the Battle of Bunker Hill, Korean War, 1952. How embarrassing to not know these names and dates.
There is so much historical information available now that it is mind boggling. Robert Caro spent ten years researching for his 3000 page magnum opus The Years of Lyndon Johnson. If students need to learn data analysis in math, they certainly need to learn research skills in their history classes. This boils down to data analysis. Math deals mostly with numbers. History deals mostly with events. But, when it comes down to it, both are trying to make sense of data. In both cases it is not the data that needs to be learned, it is the crunching of the data.
I am no math expert, but I do know that it is impossible to cover the California history content standards in the time allotted, especially if we take seriously the need for research and analysis. We have only so much time available. This year, it seems like so much less time. How do we spend this time? How do we divide the covering of information with the deep dives that involve real research and analysis. How much time do we spend remembering, and how much time do we spend understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating? This is such a basic question. Why is it so far from being resolved?
