This morning my daughter and I were listening to a recording of Mary Everest Boole’s “The Philosophy and Fun of Algebra”, a wonderful book that explains the history and origins of the various types of Algebra in a manner meant for the child of the early 1900’s.
Mary described the ancient barbarian classrooms as a place where any child who held a different opinion or used a different method to work out a math problem would be told, “Hold your tongue or get out of my classroom.” The similarity between those ancient times, Mary was referring to truly ancient days before the birth of Christ, and the times we are entering with the development of the Common Core Classroom is so strong and so striking it bears thought and discussion. Are we headed as a society back to a barbaric past, one which we avoided by learning the history of humanity, and have now a general inability to reach after a century of compulsory schooling?
Throughout history the restriction of thinking to a mandated path leads to subjugation of many by an elite few. Our liberty, afforded to us by the founders of our great nation, comes with a cost we all must bear in order to keep her: responsibility through knowledge.
We cannot revert to the ancient barbarism or the practices of their later descendents, those despotic dictators, and restrict our freedom of thought. Today Progressive Elitism and its daughter, Common Core, presents that danger most clearly. We cannot lose sight of our responsibility to carry the light of freedom of thought. Mary Everest Boole knew this and taught it to children through her math books.
This may not be the most cheery thought for a Sunday morning, but it is important nonetheless.