IT CAN be a pleasure or a pain to encounter an enthusiast. With Sherman
Stein, who is undoubtedly enthusiastic about maths, the response is perhaps
mixed. In Strength in Numbers, Stein—via clever sound bites and
sweeping statements, backed by anecdotes and some more highly sanctioned
sources—he opines, delivers diatribes and even gets silly about
mathematics. His pet peeve is critics of maths, and he rails against the bad
reputation of maths in popular culture.

Stein seems to enjoy himself as he takes on maths education reform. In a
jocular and whimsical vein, he describes “prophets reinventing the flat tire”
and criticises the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) for not
citing pilot projects or school districts as models. In fact, such models
abound—Marilyn Burn’s books and videos, for example. He also seems unaware
of current links between maths methods courses and college-level mathematics
instruction for prospective teachers.

Stein is, perhaps unintentionally, disrespectful of parents. One sentence
begins “Even a single mother”. Indeed, his suggestion to “play arithmetic” with
your children, as you might read aloud to them, is good practice, but could
become horribly counterproductive if dinner table drills convince children that
maths is not for them. The problem is that Stein loves maths, and does not seem
to understand those who do not. His prescriptions for the public take
mathematical solutions to a theoretical level more quickly than most can handle.
But halfway through Strength in Numbers, Stein switches from tirade to
real maths writing. This part covers much of pre-college maths in a pleasant
review for those who found maths fun in the first place.

Who should read this book? Someone conversant with maths does not need to.
Someone who is not may be daunted by Stein’s plunge into mathematical language,
not done gently enough to aid those anxious about maths. Yet he offers some good
ideas, some cute findings and a clear overview of general topics in
mathematics.

Written for social scientists, Street Mathematics and School Mathematics
presents studies that illustrate the authors’ main points: people use mathematics
effectively every day whether or not they learned it in school. And when
a maths problem is presented in a formal, school-like way, people are less
likely to get the right answer.

The variety of subjects in the studies reported – street vendors, farmers,
carpenters, foremen, and fishermen whose maths is contrasted with that of
students and apprentices – enriches the authors’ position. Several of the
studies, however, have very small samples for the kinds of analyses that
the authors perform on them.

Not unexpectedly, they conclude the book with recommendations to teach
mathematics which is grounded in real situations. You cannot help but agree
with this point of view, and Nunes, Schliemann and Carraher barely need
the studies in their earlier chapters to substantiate their conclusion.

Rachel Theilheimer teaches early childhood education at Borough of Manhattan
Community College, City University of New York.