Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Letters from John Dewey/Letters from Huck Finn: A look at math education from the inside

Letters from John Dewey/Letters from Huck Finn: A look at math education from the inside

Garelick, Barry

Paperback

General MathematicsTeaching Instruction

ISBN10: 0692509569
ISBN13: 9780692509562
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc
Published: Aug 14 2015
Pages: 148
Weight: 0.46
Height: 0.32 Width: 5.98 Depth: 9.02
Language: English
The publisher is Modern Educator Press. The printer is CreateSpace.

Few refuges exist from the multicolored tomes posing as math textbooks. No one is safe from this modern day invasion of the body snatchers. And just like in the movie, those with the power to do something have already been taken over by the seed pods of education school dogma. So writes Barry Garelick, using the name John Dewey in a set of letters that chronicles his journey through ed school as he pursues a second career as math teacher after retirement. A few years later, he wrote a second set of letters using the name Huck Finn, this time describing his experiences as a student teacher and then a substitute teacher. As Huck Finn he grapples with the ideological, political and cultural divide in math education. In both sets of letters, John Dewey and Huck Finn learn more than they bargained for in ways that are both humorous and, ultimately, very human.

The book presents not only the process by which one becomes a math teacher, but also the groupthink that pervades education schools and other forms of the education establishment. The prevailing mode of thought views drills, practice and the learning of procedures as rote learning and prevents true understanding. If students understand, then everything else follows, according to the so-called experts that both John Dewey and Huck Finn rebel against. The letters from John Dewey originally appeared in the blog Edspresso. The letters from Huck Finn (with the exception of Chapter 10) originally appeared in the blog Out in Left Field, also in slightly different form. The letters achieved a following of readers who expressed their agreements and disagreements quite candidly in comments on the respective blogs. It became evident to many that the great divide in math education is quite real and discussed in detail in the book.

Beautifully observed, these letters are a priceless multilayered collection-on one level, a passionate debate on math education-on another, a poignant and human look at the struggle to teach-and learn. Bursting with humor and heart, this book is a treasure and a pleasure to read.

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