Cohen, P. C. (2001). The emergence of numeracy. In L. A. Steen (Ed.), Mathematics and democracy: The case for quantitative literacy (pp. 23-29). Princeton, NJ: THE WOODROW WILSON NATIONAL FELLOWSHIP FOUNDATION.
The author takes an historical look at the emergence of ‘numeracy’. However, the anachronistic use of numeracy – a term coined as late as 1959 – poses a real problem. How can we make sense of a statement like the following?
"Certainly that distinction, between numeracy as a concrete skill embedded in the context of real-world figuring and mathematics as an abstract, formal subject of study, was sharply drawn in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries." (p.25)
Cohen is thus importing a late definition of numeracy into a much earlier context. She also uses the term quantitative literacy anachronistically.
In the context of late 19th century education, the article rightly notes that the mathematics of those who studied at pre-college and college level in the US was highly abstract and remote from practical daily use. She however notes a more practical stream of “commercial arithmetic” being taught to boys aged between 10 and 14. This consisted of rote learning of a massive number of problems from navigation and gunnery, to discount and profit/ loss calculations.
It seems that the ‘numeracy’ problems of those years took the form of context-specific exemplars. It would be interesting to think of where such exemplars might fit on a continuum with rich meaningful contextualization at one end, and highly context-independent abstract mathematics at the other. Cohen also point to others engaged in examining “the history of numeracy” (p. 28) and calls for further efforts in “the reconstruction of the history of numeracy in America” (p. 29).
I get very nervous when a term like numeracy coined around 1959 is backdated and used uncritically. A key example this century has been the advent of the word "gay". It is a term I have no problem with. But to say "Alexander the Great was gay" without some critical insight into what that might mean for a man 2000 thousand odd years ago is problematic. It is to use the term anachronistically.
ReplyDeleteThe above article and the book it comes from is out there on the internet. A good goodle serach will bring up Pdfs of all the articles in the edited book.
Thank you for explaining the problem of using a 'backdated' word. I agree with what you say and see the sense of it now but I couldn't understand the problem (what problem?) until I read the comment above.
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