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One of the five goals proposed in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' (NCTM) "Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics" is for students to become "mathematical problem solvers." To achieve this goal, the NCTM proposes fundamental changes in both the content of mathematics curricula and the pedagogy of the mathematics classroom that outline a broad role for problem solving. Textbooks and other published curricula are believed to play a significant role in the classroom instruction of mathematical problem solving. Described and compared are the conceptions of problem solving found in one commonly used elementary mathematics textbook ("Addison-Wesley Mathematics") and three distinctive elementary mathematics curricula ("Real Math", "Comprehensive School Mathematics Program", and "Math in Stride"). Although in each, problem solving was professed to be of central importance to the development of mathematical understanding and competence, how problem solving is defined and taught varied amongst the four published curricula. The different ways that problem solving is defined, formulated, and taught are explored, and the pedagogical and epistemological assumptions that underlie these differences are also discussed. The four curricula are compared on various perspectives of problem solving, the levels at which it was incorporated into the curriculum and how the authors of each curriculum viewed "mathematics as problem solving." (14 references) (MDH)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert