FIRST CAME the reading wars. Then the mathematics wars. The two are waged on adjacent battlefields by similar armies wielding similar weapons.
Both wars pit traditional basic skills against "higher-order thinking" and "process." On the one side: phonics, "old math" and Direct Instruction. On the other: "whole language" and "whole math," group discussion, lots of essays, calculators (in math) and guessing (in both math and reading).
A glossary is helpful. Don't confuse whole math with "new math," the early '60s craze. It crashed resoundingly and isn't to be associated with the whole math of today.
However, since whole language is in disrepute as the phonics forces prevail in the back-and-forth battle, whole math proponents prefer terms like "complete math," "new-new math" or "reform math." They want nothing to do with "whole" anything.
The other side, of course, rubs it in their faces: whole math, "fuzzy math," "Mickey Mouse math," "math lite" and CPM, for "compulsory pedagogical manure."
Reading and math, the first and third R's, are thus intertwined in perennial pedagogical struggle. And that's not surprising. The two fields are much alike. Both rely on a building of skills from the earliest ages. Indeed, as many have pointed out, you can't do one without the other, particularly 'rithmetic without reading. (Math, however, differs from reading in one respect: Intelligent people take pride in admitting they're weak in math.)
Which brings us to Baltimore, which has invested $10 million in a new mathematics textbook series. Those who chose the new curriculum say it runs right down the middle of the battlefield.
I visited a training session for the city's new math curriculum the other morning at a sultry Southwestern High School, where I was impressed to see 550 sweating teachers discussing such subjects as "designing polygons" and "raisin data." (Raisins are edible "manipulables" that teachers for decades have used to teach the little ones to count.)
Baltimore had a problem when it set out to follow the new school board's order for new textbooks to be used citywide, the first such effort in 12 years. On the one hand, success in the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) essentially calls for instruction in whole math. For example, children work in groups to teach one another, and the teacher is more a guide than a drill sergeant. Meanwhile, city kids need a solid grounding in basic skills if they're ever to advance to higher levels.
