The least relevant part of the story is that the professor is from Stanford, but that's what leads in this article. It's also irrelevant that she has founded a company and visited the White House. Here's what's important: "open up math, show math as an open, growth subject, not a closed, fixed subject. Ask questions and value the different thinking kids reveal... Mathematics is a subject that allows for precise thinking, but when that precise thinking is combined with creativity, flexibility, and multiplicity of ideas, the mathematics comes alive for people." It's now about 'getting the answer', it's about being fluent in a mathematical language, seeing the world in a mathematical way, and habitually engaging in mathematical reasoning.
Ever willing to add a positive contribution to the discussion, Paul Kirschner comments that Harrington is "possibly the world's best known math eduquackademic" and refers to this paper (which of course cites Kirschner's own chapter) which argues that the Harrington approach "confuses pedagogy – the way we teach a body of knowledge – with epistemology – the way that a field gains new knowledge." Of course it does nothing of the kind - neither Kirschner nor his acolytes understand how new knowledge is actually generated in science. I've dealt with this before, at length.
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