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State’s return to geometry requires teacher preparation
Source: The Buffalo News, Opinion, Math instruction by Alfred S.
Posamentier.
February 23, 2008.
Alfred S. Posamentier, Ph.D., is dean of the School of Education at the
City College of New York.
As if mathematics teachers did not have enough to worry about with the
constant focus on student performance, beginning September 2008, New
York State high schools will be introducing a new geometry course that
is part of the new New York State mathematics standards initiative.
Instituting a new geometry course would not be a problem in any of the
other 49 states, where geometry has been taught consistently for the
past century. However, more than two decades ago New York dropped the
tenthyear mathematics course (as the geometry course was then called) in
favor of a sequential mathematics course, which was a rough attempt to
integrate the previous high school courses of algebra I and II, geometry
and trigonometry.
Couple this with the fact that the large number of math teachers in New
York have less than four years of teaching experience and you find that
there will be many relatively inexperienced teachers faced with teaching
a course — geometry — that they have not even studied as a high school
student. Further exacerbating the lack of preparation to teach geometry
is the fact that most math majors do not take a course in Euclidean
geometry.
It was bad enough in the “good-old days” when most math teachers — even
the better ones — did not study geometry beyond the course that they
were teaching. (Imagine teaching Shakespeare, having read none of
Shakespeare’s works beyond Julius Caesar.)
The problem New York schools will face is not only providing teachers of
the new geometry course with the content that they will be teaching and
supporting material, but also making them aware of some of the subtle
differences between the new geometry standards and the geometry topics
they taught as part of the sequential-math sequence.
Even teachers who recall the tenthyear mathematics course will notice
differences in emphasis on such things as the forms of writing geometric
proofs and the enhancement of topics such as transformations in geometry
and three-dimensional geometry.
Having served on the New York State Math Standards Commission, which
prepared the new standards, I am particularly sensitive to the need to
prepare teachers appropriately.
These are not overwhelming challenges for any properly prepared math
teacher, yet they deserve special attention well before the fall 2008
school-year begins. Take this as a wake-up call to begin intensive
in-service training throughout the state, so that teachers can gear up
gradually, appropriately and in a meaningful manner.
I hope other schools of education as well as the Department of Education
will support other such efforts. School districts would be wise to
secure in-service training for math teachers slated to teach geometry in
the fall to make a smooth transition to this new course, thereby
preserving the excellent teaching of this most important subject.
See also:
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