Beware of Overconfidence
In one of the recent posts I quoted a retired teacher on the relevance of educational fads on success or failure of the teaching process. In his opinion there was none. And I believe this is indeed the case. All the educational theories, even when supported by the so-called research, remain what they actually are - provisional fads. The reason I strongly believe in that is that each such theory admits no uncertainty. They are practically black and white which provides a ready explanation of the ugly phenomenon known as the math wars.
Stephen Hawking in his A Brief History of Time in the section on the unification of physics writes
... the prospects of finding such a theory seem to be much better now because we know so much more about the universe. But we must beware of overconfidence--we had false dawns before!
I wonder why there had to be one single educational methodology that fits all teachers, all students and all subjects. The succession of math education reforms in the past century that came and went in 5-10 year intervals plainly attest to the fact that no single methodology is likely to answer all the needs.
Sharing experiences and learning of new and successful practices is a positive development, useful for any teacher. The confindence with which one of these was promoted as the best and the only viable practice is what plagued and still plagues the atmosphere of the educational discourse.
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