[Maths-Education] Re: Jo Boaler

[John Bibby]

I got an error message at the LSBU site - did anybody else find this?  JOHN
B



On 8 November 2012 17:23, Peter Gates <Peter.Gates at nottingham.ac.uk> wrote:

> Dear Mathematics Educators and Friends,
> On November 1, Dr Jo Boaler addressed the PME-NA community to discuss the
> importance of communicating our research with broader audiences and
> recognizing and facing the challenging political climates in which we work.
>  However, she also shared a disturbing story of the unrelenting and unfair
> attacks she has been subjected to from a few individuals in the
> "mathematically correct" community.  In bravely sharing this story, she
> made it evident that there have been serious breaches of academic rules
> (keeping sources of data private) and of ethical behavior (harassment and
> vindictive personal attacks on Jo Boaler). In threatening her academic
> freedom-i.e., her freedom to conduct research without harassment-and in
> insisting on posting in a public space an article that breaks
> confidentiality and is inaccurate, these actions also threaten our
> fundamental values.  Jo Boaler is a valued and respected member of our
> community, and we should not stand by and see such activity without lodging
> a protest. Furthermore, we see the attacks on the work of Professor Boaler
> as an attack on the work of the whole mathematics education community
> toward the improvement of the teaching and learning of mathematics, and
> lack of action on the part of Stanford continues to harm our community and
> our work.
> For these reasons, we request that you:
> a)    Make your own judgment by reading Jo Boaler's personal statement,
> posted at http://www.stanford.edu/~joboaler/<
> https://mail.lsbu.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=HabvE9Q6JUKADB59yEUhWUSIzsdXkM8IJT7Gj4swWa4BAWAoKPQ0UQpVCt_ExBfRvlxy1PJ8JYg.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.stanford.edu%2f%7ejoboaler%2f>
> outlining the events and the article in question posted at
> ftp://math.stanford.edu/pub/papers/milgram/combined-evaluations-version3.pdf
> b)    Then we hope you choose to act by either or both:
> i.      Signing the petition found at
> http://www.change.org/petitions/the-community-of-mathematics-educators-join-in-defending-fundamental-values
> ii.    Sending a personal letter to the president and provost of Stanford.
>  If you could email those (President Hennessy,(president at stanford.edu
> <mailto:president at stanford.edu>), Provost Etchemendy (etch at stanford.edu
> <mailto:etch at stanford.edu>), and blind copy Jo Boaler (
> joboaler at stanford.edu<mailto:joboaler at stanford.edu>), that would be ideal.
> Please join the PME-NA community in responding to this unfair and
> unacceptable circumstance as soon as possible.  We believe that Stanford
> University is currently reviewing the situation and tends to underestimate
> its potential negative effects on our colleague and on our community of
> scholars as a whole.  Academic freedom is the basis of all of our scholarly
> work.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Steve
>
> Professor Stephen Lerman
> Department of Education
> London South Bank University
> 103 Borough Road
> LONDON SE1 0AA
> United Kingdom
> Tel: +44 (0)20 7815 7440
> Fax: +44 (0)20 7815 8160
> url: https://sites.google.com/site/lermansteve/home
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