NCTM reviews Gene Maier's book
From Teaching Children Mathematics, Vol. 11, No. 6, page 349.
From Gene Maier's perspective as a mathematician and mathematics educator, he provides a thought-provoking view of many of the important issues in mathematics education. Through his connections to events in the 1990s and early 2000s, he portrays his vision of mathematics instruction as one that emphasizes the development of mathematical meaning and insight.
Maier's discussions of high-stakes testing, the use of calculators in the mathematics classroom, the development of mathematical intuition, the creation of “real world” problems, and other topics cast an insightful view of the important questions about teaching mathematics that have arisen in the last decade. He laments the impact of the instructional overemphasis on following algorithms, “teaching to the test” instead of teaching for meaning, and other factors that have detracted from the development of conceptual understanding.
As an example of Maier’s musings, he discusses the importance of developing mathematical understanding through connections between visual representations and the mathematical symbols that they embody. He then relates the importance of these connections to current brain research, contending that current mathematics instruction too often results in an “instructional separation” of the two hemispheres of the brain. Such instruction often keeps students from seeing the “big picture” that overarches the procedures that they learn.
From his experiences as a mathematician and a mathematics educator, Maier examines the impact of politicians, mathematicians, professional organizations, and administrators on the improvement of mathematics instruction. Mathematicians, current K-12 teachers, and mathematics teacher educators will find his stories relevant, instructional, and enjoyable. –John Lannin, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211.
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