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Wrong Way. Go Back!

Every assertion is selective. Different people observe the same events, yet 'see' them quite differently. In such cases national debate can still lead to a workable consensus provided those involved are willing to listen to, and to learn from, one another. The same cannot be said when those involved exercise their selectivity by refusing even to face the same facts. For too long, mathematicians and those involved professionally in mathematics education in England and Wales have not only looked at the world through different coloured spectacles, they seem to have been observing separate almost incompatible universes. Discussion has been rare, agreement non-existent. Thus, during the key period since the Education Reform Act 1986, the kind of lead which the profession needed has been lacking. The vacuum has been filled by politicians and small-minded bureaucrats. It is not easy to summarise the response of ordinary mathematics teachers, including those in primary schools. My impression is that in the midand late80s, many teachers took up the challenge presented by the Cockcroft Report [1], and worked hard to take advantage of the resulting opportunities. Since then there has been a degree of polarisation, which has lead to unresolved tensions often within one and the same teacher. In particular, those who sought to develop schemes for the previously neglected 'bottom half have seen many of their efforts undermined by arbitrary bureaucratic restrictions, which have often stifled promising attempts to interpret the recommendations implicit in the Cockcroft Report, the HMI paper Mathematics from 5 to 16 [2], and other documents. From this point of view recent trends have led to too much (or at least, the wrong kind of) central control. On the other hand, those who are concerned primarily with the top half of the ability range are increasingly discovering that the National Curriculum and its associated structures are simply too weak to provide any sort of reliable mathematical foundation, with the result that their students' subsequent progress is suffering. (Grade inflation may have camouflaged the true extent of the phenomenon, but no one is fooled by this.)