ABSTRACT
Ten years is a very brief period of time in the history of American education. However, for mathematical sciences education, the decade of the 1980s has been a period of controversy, reflection, and productive research that has culminated in calls for radical reform in the content and methods of instruction in mathematics classrooms. I have chosen to focus on this decade because it began with the publication of An Agenda for Action (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1980), which was the initial call for reform, and ended with the publication of Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989), which presents a vision of mathematics learning and teaching for the next century. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight what has been learned that has led to the reform effort during the past hectic decade. Furthermore, I argue that the implications of what we have learned, if followed, would change the public’s view of mathematics, as well as the way mathematics is taught and learned in school. To organize my argument, I have chosen to contrast classroom instruction in mathematics as traditionally practiced with the vision of authentic classroom instruction that is now being advocated. With that contrast as a point of departure, I examine the changes in epistemological thinking and cognitive research that underlie the calls for reform. The chapter concludes with a summary of the implications of these changes and a series of questions that need to be addressed.
