Looking at NCTM Principles & Standards - both the positive and negative

I may be incorrect, but I felt this week’s reading were an analysis of the NCTM’s documents called Principles & Standards (both the 1989 and 2000). One seemed to be critical of the document with respect to LD students, saying that the document’s ideas/concepts did not take into account the learning/teaching processes necessary to ensure that these students are successful in their mathematical career. Whereas the second took a more positive view with respect to the Standards, stating that if the ideas from this document were fully implemented into curricula then improved results for students would be seen and provided data to support this claim. Now I do confess that these are both very broad inferences, but overall I did feel one reading was negative and the other positive. However, I will be looking at these readings somewhat separately.

Article 1

With respect to the first article about meeting the challenges of help LD students in mathematics, I have to admit I was somewhat shocked to read that, “students with disabilities were neglected throughout the document [Principles & Standards]” (p. 89). I was surprised because I happen to meet a lot of American teachers through workshops and know that Standards is considered a very important part of developing curricula, so see that it does not include an important segment of the student population is unsettling (especially in light of the second article that states full implementation of these ideas shows improvement in students’ results – does this author take into account LD students?).

So I went back to our own math documents to see what our expectations are with respect to LD students in Ontario. I discovered that vocabulary describing these students were slightly different (I say because 9 & 10 was written in 2005, and 11 & 12 was written in 2007). In Grade 9 & 10 the section is called “Planning Mathematics Programs for Exceptional Students” (pp. 24-25) and in the Grade 11 & 12 document, the section is called “Planning Mathematics Programs for Students with Special Education Needs” (pp. 32 – 34). Despite the different names of the section the expectations were similar (more detail was seen in the Grade 11 & 12 document) and they seem to be directed towards accommodations and/or modifications that can be made by teachers in order to ensure that students with difficulties are successful. I took this as a positive sign that the Ministry of Education were taking into account all students; although I will concede there is not a lot of direction to how we can ensure that we are in fact accommodating these students, but it is a start that they are in fact mentioned in a document that we use?

Another thing I found interesting about this article was the fact that special education was based in behavioural theory and that special needs teachers were concerned about the constructionist theory, upon which I believe NCTM Principles & Standards, is based. When I was reading the article the needs of special need students appear to be similar the needs of all our students – making math more meaningful, showing that math is more than skill-based, understanding mathematical conceptually, etc. I found this to be a powerful acknowledgement because I do wonder if expectations are diminished for these students because of their struggles, and time and different teaching strategies would enable these students to be successful as presented in this article.

Last thought (because I am going on yet again) with regards to this article, I thought the following sentence was important “students with learning disabilities are categorically different from those who exhibit developmental delays” (according to Geary, p.94) – this is an important distinction and I wonder if the lines are sometimes blurred? I have worked with both students from both groups and have always struggled to ensure that I am meeting the needs of both. I do worry that I have failed one or both groups.

Article 2

As I have written a lot once more, I will be brief here and respond to others instead. My first impression was that the tone reminded me a lot of the first article we read from EQAO, looking at the Grade 9 Academic & Applied results – very upbeat, and are we not proud of what has been accomplished. This is not to say that the stats are not correct and that there shouldn’t be a celebration of the success seen in Pittsburgh and Michigan, but I don’t know the right way to say this, but it seemed too positive. Maybe someone else will express what I am saying more eloquently. I felt that the some broad statements regarding the success of standard-based reform were a bit too generous, for example: “racial performance gap diminishes substantially” (p. 17), when we are looking at one city (although he did say that there was further success in Michigan). Perhaps I am being harsh?

I did, though, agree wholeheartedly that more professional development and time are needed to ensure that the teachers are prepared to teach students so that they can reach their full potential.

Again, sorry for the length!