Showing posts with label Math Wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Math Wars. Show all posts

The Open Letter to
James Milgram The Inciter


Professor James Milgram has been around for some time. In 1996 he left his place at Stanford and without invitation came to California, introduced himself as a expert of Education and began making claims, which had no basis, and he didn't have any real experience with the education of K-12. He strode in on reputation as a mathematician alone. Now... that reputation was fairly solid at that time, and as he was sure would happen, the people he approached endowed reputation with more than it warranted.

The Math Wars had begun several years later, and this was his next target. On reputation he could only do so much. Very soon other tactics were introduced to the traditionalists side -- tactics no one would expect academics to use on each other.


September 20, 2002

Professor James Milgram
Department of Mathematics
Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Jim

I am replying to you with an open letter. Events of this past week or so have dismayed me and brought me to ask if my views on democracy in America are out of line with those of my peers. Though I feel that people have the legal right to express even extreme forms of dissent, I also believe that there is a slow decrease in our civility to one another, making it much more difficult to bring about consensus and accomplish common goals. In the range between civility and the extremity of legal expression is a gray area where all of us react negatively or positively. I need to ask if many people would react as I have. First I'd like to outline as objectively as I can the events to which I am reacting.

The Letter Requesting James Milgram to be Removed from Stanford Professorship 2002

This letter was signed and supported by 1007 academic supporters in 2002 as a protest against James Milgram, his lack of professionalism, his intimidation methods and the outright assault on Professor Jo Boaler of Stanford University


Dear President Hennessy and Provost Etchemendy:

On November 1, 2012, Professor Jo Boaler of Stanford University gave a keynote address at the meeting of the North American chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME-NA). In her address, Professor Boaler discussed the importance of communicating research with broader audiences and recognizing and facing the challenging political climates in which we work. Professor Boaler made public the troubling attacks to which she has been subjected from a member of your mathematics faculty, Professor James Milgram. She has also posted a detailed account (http://www.stanford.edu/~joboaler/) of these attacks. The response, from the research community around the world, has been immediate and virulent. Shocked reactions are spreading rapidly.

Professor Boaler’s report describes some serious breaches of academic integrity (protecting the confidentiality of human subjects) and of ethical behavior (harassment and personal attacks). We view the behavior that has been reported as a threat to Professor Boaler’s academic freedom, that is, her freedom to conduct research without harassment. Professor Boaler is a valued and respected member of our community, and we cannot stand by and see such activity without lodging a protest. Furthermore, we see the attacks on the work of Professor Boaler, and Stanford’s inaction in response, as threatening to the work of the mathematics education research community.

We the undersigned believe, on the basis of the evidence that has been made publicly available, that Professor Jo Boaler has been the object of a campaign of harassment conducted by Stanford University Professor James Milgram and others that far exceeds the boundaries of scholarly discourse and academic freedom, that these actions have harmed Professor Boaler, and that these actions, if unaddressed by Stanford, will continue to damage Professor Boaler and may well damage the university itself. We ask you to open an official inquiry into the actions taken against Professor Boaler, and to make public the results of that inquiry and the actions that follow from it.

The Education Wars
The Achievements of James Milgram

100%/x%=800/26
(100/x)*x=(800/26)*x      
100=30.769230769231 * x   (30.769230769231) to get x
100/30.769230769231=x 
3.25=x 
x=3.25
26 is 3.25% of 800
Just trying to get into the Spirit of things. And actually, that's the most math I've done for a whole year. I might have counted a couple of times how many slices of pizza were left, and made an estimation of probability on the chances of me finishing the slice I already had, before my son snaked the last one -- but that is really all I use math for estimations and probability.

I do love data though. I consume a great deal of data.

Milgram -- Inciter of
the Math Wars



Do you recall the Math Wars?

I think anyone who was a researcher or near the academic world at least heard about them. Prof James Milgram is probably one of the last soldiers standing -- which seems appropriate since from many accounts, he started them. They began, in true form, the declaration being called, in 1994, though there are some references to 1987, which I'm not sure count -- signs of where things were leading? ... Definitely.

Education, public education, especially in the areas of Math and ELS are terrible. I believe... I haven't checked this though I'll probably confirm some time soon ... that they are worse than they were in the 50s.

Where the Wild Things Are...

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