THE DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS
DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS
1950s
INTRODUCTION
In the 1950s, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I, the world's first artificial satellite. That event ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. The U.S. compared its education system to Russia’s and found that Russian students were attending school six days a week and for more hours each day than our students. Russia focused on the more capable students; the U.S. focused on the weaker learners. Sputnik’s success placed pressure on educational communities to ensure our students made significant gains in mathematics and science knowledge.
The Laboratory School Department of Mathematics teaching faculty during the 1950s included Mary Anderson, Russell Drumright, Donald Herrick, Joseph Hohlfeld, George Immerzeel, Cyril Jackson, William Maricle, Della McMahon, Ross Nielsen, Lyman Peck, Helen Schweizer, and Donald Wiederanders.
TEACHING
In 1955, Ross A. Nielsen, like Cliff Stone before him, arrived in Cedar Falls just as the Lab School was set to open its new high school on ISTC’s north campus. He was an ideal hire to Chair the Math Department for his 1954 University of Iowa doctoral dissertation had been a study of Mathematics Teaching in Iowa High Schools.
Nielsen and faculty soon were rewriting and implementing courses to match the challenge of the Modern Mathematics movement. This commitment also was evidenced when faculty from the mathematics and science departments at the Lab School joined together in teaching summer school to research the learning of area students.
In just a few years, with Russia's surprise launch of the Sputnik spaceship in 1957, Nielsen and the PLS Math Department became part of the “new math” (also called the “modern math”) movement that rose in response. The “new math” was a brief but dramatic change in the way math was taught in American schools and, to a lesser extent, in European countries, during the late 1950s and 1960s. Math became more than just the rote memory (and drill) required for students to learn to add, subtract, multiply, and divide; students were pushed to see the “thinking” behind the problems. The “new math” included modular arithmetic, matrices, algebraic inequalities, Boolean algebra, abstract algebra, and symbolic logic.
As with “programmed instruction” and “teaching machines,” the “new math” showed the Lab School—and ISTC—on the cutting edge of education research and practice.
In 1958 George Immerzeel taught a “modern math” class for Northeast Iowa parents using an “electro-writer,” so they could understand what their children were learning. Immerzeel would write on a screen which was then transmitted via phone to five or six centers in Northeast Iowa, anticipating—by decades—the statewide Iowa Communications Network.
The Lab School math faculty early on initiated its own program called Modern Mathematics to meet the challenges of producing numeracy-literate students. The following is a summary report from 1955:
“The primary objective of the Modern Mathematics program is that each pupil gains insight and understanding in mathematics as a logically developed structure, created as an aid in solving problems in the physical world. Pupils should gain respect for the cultural aspects of mathematics and acquire the knowledge and skills, which will enable them to achieve life goals."
Program Development of Modern Mathematics
In the fall of 1955, experimentation began in one section of ninth-grade algebra taught by Henry Van Engen, then Head of the Department of Mathematics at Iowa State Teachers College. The project expanded to include work at every grade level, kindergarten through 12th grade.
Underlying Principles
At the inception of the project the following principles were agreed upon to serve as guidelines in the development of new teaching procedures and classroom materials.
NCA Approval of Secondary School
In 1958, Price Laboratory School initiated a self-study and applied for outside accreditation from the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. A letter was received from the North Central Association’s office stating that the school was placed on the list of secondary schools receiving accreditation at the meeting of the Association Board. No visitation was held but faculty held departmental meetings to set goals for their departments based on this report.
PUBLICATIONS
“The Iowa State Teachers College and Price Laboratory School math departments had some of the major leaders in the (modern mathematics) movement,” stated Ross Nielsen. “In some math journals, they were identified as the cradle of modern mathematics.”
In 1958, Ross Nielsen and his Laboratory School math department colleague, George Immerzeel, published an article in The Mathematics Teacher, published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. This is one example of how faculty and this department began sharing their learning with other professionals.
“Modern Mathematics: It’s Up to Us”
Ross Nielsen. George Immerzeel
1958
“There are many indications today that certain aspects of our mathematics curriculum are inadequate. We need to realize that it is we, the classroom teachers, who must provide the impetus which is necessary to develop a modern program in mathematics. The leadership has been provided, the modern concepts of mathematics are being developed, and the publishers will produce the textbook materials when we as teachers indicate that we are ready to use them. It is up to us!”
SERVICE
The Mathematics Department of the Laboratory School participated actively in all phases of the college program in professional laboratory experiences for prospective teachers. It also contributed to the college field service program for the public schools by providing:
Resource persons at teacher in-service meetings, county institutes, workshops and career days;
Instructors for extension classes taught in various parts of the state;
Curriculum consultants to the State Department of Public Instruction and the public schools;
Materials for bulletins and publications; and
In a summary of the decade of the 50s, Ross Nielsen explained his vision of a good Laboratory School. “A laboratory school should be more than a typical school. It should be leading the way: challenging the intellect of students preparing to become teachers, and providing leadership for teachers in the field. The faculty need to be involved in the development of institutional methods and techniques and in the development of new curriculum and materials; in obtaining grants; and conducting a variety of projects.” It should also “play an important role in state leadership, sponsoring conferences and workshops, teaching extension classes, consulting in the field, and publishing materials for teachers in the classroom.”
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