Moo and Tabloid Review

The paper ‘The 12 Math-Blunders of Killer-Mathematics’ was written for the fifth Swedish Mathematics Education Research Seminar, MADIF 5, in Malmoe in Sweden in 2006. After its rejection it was presented at the 41. Tagung für Didaktik der Mathematik in Berlin Germany. The paper defines ‘killer-mathematics’ as the authorized routines that threaten to kill the enrolment to mathematics based education by creating enrolment problems; and that threatens to kill the relevance of mathematics. Using the principles of natural learning and natural research concepts and theory are based upon laboratory observations and validations. In this way a natural mathematics can be recreated revealing 12 math-blunders in mathematics education. The blunders are treating both numbers and letters as symbols, 2digit numbers before decimal numbers, fractions before decimals, forgetting the units, addition before division, fractions before pernumbers and integration, proportionality before doublecounting, balancing instead of backward calculation, killer equations instead of grounded equations, geometry before trigonometry, postponing calculus, and finally the 5 metablunders of mathematics education. The paper was rejected and only accepted as a short presentation. The way it was rejected led to the production of the following mini paper.

The mini-paper called ‘Moo Review and Tabloid Review’ was written in response to the rejection of the paper above. The paper defines ‘Moo-review’ as a review containing at most a single sound; and ‘Tabloid-review’ as a review containing only a single sentence. Three reviewers reviewed the paper above. The review contained 14 examples of moo-review, and 11 examples of tabloid-review. Only 2 statements contained two sentences. The paper uses this observation to raises some questions and to give some recommendations as how to use other forms of review questions. Also it proposes that moo-review and tabloid-review should not be accepted since statements as ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are verdicts, but in any democratic society a verdict always rests upon testimonies and cross-examination. The paper was sent to the conference editors, but it was not published.