Soundoff: Geometry: A Remedy for the Malaise of Middle School Mathematics

Many mathematics educators perceive that the weakest part of the precollege mathematics curriculum is at the middle school level, more specifically, the years immediately preceding the study of algebra. It seems that in the middle grades the development of mathematics has been put into a “holding pattern.” A quick glance at the curriculum for seventh and eighth grades—or in some cases sixth and seventh gradesshows that much arithmetic is still being taught. Haven't we, or shouldn't we have, completed teaching arithmetic in the previous five or six years? Indeed, how much arithmetic teaching do we need to do in an age of ever-improving calculators (Heid 1988)? Very often students greet a unit in these grades with the now famous comment, “Oh, I had this already.” “Sure,” thinks the teacher, “you may have had it, but have you learned it?” It is clear to many educators that these middle grades are key to turning a student “on” to or “off” from mathematics.