◆ June 24　

International Society for Education establishment general meeting

･Place 　　 Doshisha University (Neiseikan N31 room of the fourth floor)
･Program
Organization meeting
【1】About the establishment outline
【2】About the director
【3】About the regulations of a society
【4】Others
Lecture meeting
【1】Goro Kato (Professor of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo)
"United States mathematics education"

　　　　　　　　Math War in California

California Polytechnic State University,
San Luis Obispo
Goro Kato

　The U.S.A had a stronger mathematics educational　system during 1950's and 1960's. When the performance in mathematics got worse in 1970's and 1980's, less demanding mathematics was introduced (i.e., changing the standard of mathematics) to get better results in the test's scores. In 1990's, more minority oriented math program was introduced by math education people at colleges. This movement around 1995 in math education is often referred to as Soft Math. It is easier and more entertaining, but lacking in rigor. As a result, many students easily got A's, and consequently most of the students got A's or B's, and rarely got C's.
This "happy results" made many students got into good universities with their GPA even higher than 4.00 (with AP classes). But happy freshmen with GPA>4.00 met the demanding college standard. All of sudden, those good student are getting grades C's, D's and even F's at colleges. That is "playing house" attitude during their high school time met the reality in colleges.
Soft math was created as an interplay among:
(1) Minority oriented programs are more likely supported as projects proposed by math education professors. (Note that Ed. D. or Ph. D in math education can be obtained without having math degrees in undergraduate or/and master's level.)
(2) High GPA made students and their parents happy, (consequently, no complains from parents to teachers.)
(3) Especially, grade school teachers with Liberal Art degrees welcome soft math since they don't have to solve math problems rigorously.
(4) As noted in the above, good GPA made more students admitted to good universities.

【2】Kazuo Nishimura（Professor of Kyoto University）
"One expected of International Society for Education "

Exchange of participant's opinion