Blast from Past, Dept.

I wrote this 4 years ago regarding a column in USA Today. I commented and got into an argument with Linda Gojak, former president of NCTM. She presents the usual obfuscation and claims as evidence that students lack ‘understanding” because they cannot apply procedures in a variety of different problem solving situations. Well, if you ignore the novice-expert spectrum and put an expectation of expert thinking on novices, then yes, there’s your evidence I guess.

Here’s what I wrote four years ago:

Linda Gojak, former president of NCTM, decides to answer my comment on a comment she made in response to someone else and … Where was I? Well, it was a USAToday article proclaiming that Common Core math is not fuzzy.

Here’s what I said: “Linda Gojak Some understanding is critical, but not all. Sometimes procedural fluency leads to that understanding. It works in tandem. “

Her response:…