Parrot math

Phi Delta Kappan

Volumn 80, Issue 6, 1999, Pages 434-438

  O'Brien, Thomas C ^a  

^a SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY EDWARDSVILLE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0039184502     PISSN: 00317217     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (12)

1. For background on knowledge as a fabric or network, see Thomas C. O'Brien, "Some Thoughts on Treasure-Keeping," Phi Delta Kappan, January 1989, pp. 360-64;
2. Thomas C. O'Brien, idem, "What's Basic? A Constructivist View," Basic Skills and Choices 1 (Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Education, April 1982), pp. 85-94.
3. See also Thomas C. O'Brien, idem, "Forward to Basics," The Genetic Epistemologist, July 1977;
4. Thomas C. O'Brien, idem, "More on Basics," The Genetic Epistemologist, October 1977.
5. These last three papers are available from the author. Send a SASE to Thomas C. O'Brien, Box 1122, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL 62026-1122. Please include $2.50 to cover the cost of photocopying. For a summary of 80 years of research on children's construction of knowledge, see Ed Labinowicz, The Piaget Primer: Thinking, Learning, Teaching (Menlo Park, Calif.: Addison-Wesley, 1980).
6. For background and research on elementary school children's construction of mathematical ideas, see Ed Labinowicz, idem, Learning from Children: New Beginnings for Teaching Numerical Thinking: A Piagetian Approach (Menlo Park, Calif.: Addison-Wesley, 1985).
7. For a thorough critique of the transmission of facts and the "force-feeding" of information as an educational practice, see Jean Piaget, Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child (New York: Orion Press, 1970).
8. Meanwhile, the critics give the impression that constructivist approaches are new to math education. For background on a constructivist approach to education as it has taken place since 1944 in England and the British Commonwealth, see Molly Brearley et al., The Teaching of Young Children (New York: Schocken Books, 1970). See also more than 40 years of Mathematics Teaching, the quarterly journal of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics.
9. For background on the harmful effects of the direct teaching of arithmetic algorithms and on the success of pupil-originated procedures, see Constance Kamii and Ann Dominick, "The Harmful Effects of Algorithms in Grades 1-4," in Lorna J. Morrow and Margaret J. Kenney, eds., The Teaching and Learning of Algorithms in School Mathematics, 1998 Yearbook (Reston, Va.: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1998), pp. 130-40;
10. Constance Kamii, Young Children Continue to Reinvent Arithmetic, 3rd Grade (New York: Teachers College Press, 1994), pp. 33-48.
11. For a description of "the political campaign to change America's mind about how children learn to read," see Denny Taylor, Beginning to Read and the Spin Doctors of Science (Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1998);
12. Jacques Steinberg, "Reading Experts Suggest Teachers Mix Two Methods," New York Times, 19 March 1998, p. A-1.