Arithmetic for the Twelfth Year

Abstract

I will not go into detail concerning the teaching of a twelfth year arithmetic class, because you teachers know far more about that than I, but I will give you the development of the class in Ridgewood and its possibilities. What we are doing in Ridgewood is not new. Many schools throughout the country are giving the same work but under various titles. There are some who feel that our spade work in this branch of mathematics will be interesting to you. I believe the course fills a definite need in our school and community. The fact that the joint commission in 1940 suggested a social-economic arithmetic course for grade twelve or that the Commission for Postwar Plans in 1944 urged the high schools to include new and better courses for a large fraction of the school population, whose mathematical needs are not met in the traditional sequential courses, might be necessary to justify such a course in the eyes of some educators or college admittance officers, but not to me, nor to most of you. Even in a community such as Ridgewood, where 75% of the high school students plan to enter college, to contend that the sequential courses are the only ones of value and other courses may not be included in the curriculum is either due to pure stupidity or laziness. We either can't see beyond a few college requirements or knowing something else should be done for the students, we pass over the opportunity because of the work involved.