.3 Hitches to a National Curriculum

All of the issues of mobility that we are talking about in terms if the U.S. are issues of mobility in terms of the world. That comes back to the issues of a standardized curriculum and it also comes back to the issues we mentioned before in terms of other kinds of standards. Mundane things such as electrical current, units of measurement, and language all change according to political and geographical boundaries. Such changes present problems of mobility that are troubling. The mobility in terms of education is a problem that is not likely to go away. Nobody is predicting that we are just going to settle down and stay in Norfolk. Mobility will stay at the same rate and probably become more complex and there will probably be more diverse populations to deal with and probably there will be more diverse standards to deal with. Therefore there is a need for some kind of standardization. Now granted that once we have agreed to have that standardization, we are only at the beginning of the process and not at the end of the process. The odds of coming up with the ideal goals our first attempt is not very high, look at how awful they were in Charlotte. The idea of coming up with the ideal curriculum is not likely to ever happen. We will probably always have all sorts of problems in terms of a curriculum. The efforts at having a national history curriculum got absolutely torpedoed because some people got angry with the omission of Thomas Edison. When we put Thomas Edison in the curriculum we tell kids lies about him. We never talk about how Thomas Edison took the credit for things he didn't invent. We don't ever talk about what a nasty man he was in a whole lot of ways. Yes he was a very bright brilliant man and he invented many things and those inventions were significant and I have nothing against studying Thomas Edison but I have something against sort of making people seem mythical and distorting things almost deliberately in terms of creating this kind of national myth that everything we did was right. Then the very same people who think that the national math curriculum is great in terms of the NCTM's, the only reason they think that curriculum is great is because they never read it. Most of the people who favor the national math standards don't realize that one of those standards is that there should be no ability grouping at all in math through grade eight. While it is true that heterogenous classes can be beneficial, if you have a marginal teacher, that marginal teacher just collapses in a heterogeneous class. However in a homogeneous class, teaching kids of narrow ability level, is a lot easier. So the results are less beneficial but they're more predictable. So most of the people who are saying how wonderful these national standards of math are just haven't read them. They would be appalled to know that in the math curriculum they say you can use a calculator any time. If you would rather learn to use your calculator rather than your math tables, you are allowed to do that. Many people who are endorsing the National Council's math standards do so without knowing what the standards are. So an ideal national curriculum that everyone can agree on is something we should always strive for, but that is impossible to achieve.

	Why is it difficult to create a national curriculum?	Answer Here
	Mr. Midyette is a first grade teacher who is trying to teach his students addition and subtraction in the traditional ways. How might a national curriculum for math affect Mr. Midyette's job?	Answer Here