Afternoon enVision Math Session Added

There will be two parent information sessions on enVision Math today:

4:00-6:00 p.m.
7:00-9:00 p.m.

Both sessions will take place at the Ed Center, third floor, and will include a presentation on the books, materials and program, a chance to look at the materials, and questions-and-answers with one of the textbook's authors.

No need to RSVP or sign up -- just show up if you want to get first-hand information about how math will be taught in our elementary schools beginning in the Fall.

I understand there will also be "math nights" at individual schools in the Fall.

Math Presentation

Just wanted to let you know that the complete presentation from the Math Planning Team is now available on the homepage of the District website. Click here. This includes the PowerPoint plus all the links to the data, scores, parent and teacher ratings, etc., that were used to make the selection of enVision Math as the K-5 textbook. There's a lot of info available -- much more than was presented at the meeting. There's also all the historical documents, including the vision statement created by the committee, the criteria by which the textbooks were judged, and more. The webcast of the meeting is also available, click here.

There's new and then there's new.

Last night there was a comment about the newness of the enVision math program. The speaker asked (I’m paraphrasing), “If you had a newborn infant, would you buy the brand new, untested car seat?” First of all, they don’t sell “untested” car seats. Consumers demand some sort of quality/safety testing, the results of which are usually posted on the car seat’s packing or label. But to continue with the analogy, if the car seat was produced by a longtime maker of car seats, a company that has been designing car seats for years, and the latest offering is their newest model, based on previous models but improved through research and testing and redesign, then YES. That’s the car seat I’d buy. I would not buy the first-ever car seat from the brand new “John Doe Car Seat Co.” And I would not buy the car seat marketed as “the old-fashioned car seat, just like the one you rode in as a child in the 60s or 70s.” (Remember, this isn’t my analogy, I’m just taking it a little further to make a different point.)

I, too, questioned the newness of enVision. (Sheila beat me to the question last night!) But then I looked at how it’s really an evolution of traditional math programs from Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley, with “improvements” based on what educators have learned about teaching and learning.

I thought a lot this week about the concept of newness and our different reactions to it. Sometimes we’re excited by the new. We’re drawn to it. It’s human nature and it’s also part of our American culture. But other times we’re just as skeptical of the new. We don’t trust it. It’s unfamiliar. We want the comfort of the things we know. The good old days. I’m not sure what it is that triggers one response over the other. I can honestly say when I first read about enVision, I said, “well, scratch that one, it’s too new.” But then I looked into it and my opinion changed. I became more comfortable. Turning the pages of the textbooks and speaking to teachers who use it (in other districts), I moved from the skeptical to the excited. And maybe that’s part of the recipe for our response to new things: Education. Information. Research. The more we know about something, the more we are able to feel comfortable about it, regardless of it being new or old.

Have a good evening.