THE NEW NEW MATH

What Makes Saxon Run?RICHARD BROOKHISER

4 f HAD DECIDED, before the courseM. began, I'm going to th'ow out

all theory. I'm just going to sbotgun it.Whatever works—I don't care."

The man across the table looks likeJohn Glenn and speaks like a good oI'boy, and he is talking about epiphany—his. It happened in the classroom ofan Oklahoma junior college in which hewas teaching algebra.

"One day 1 gave them a magnificentlecture. Hell, it was good. Only thingwrong with it. it was forty minutesshort. I said. 'They'll shoot me if I letyou out forty minutes early. So let'swork the problems on the board.' "(Fortunately there was board space inthe classroom for everyone—fortunately,or providentially. "I must have beenchosen as a vessel somewhere.") "If youhave trouble, signal for a fair catch."

They worked, they had trouble, andthey signaled—all of them. So teacherand class went through the problemagain. And again, until everyone got it.And so on, with the next problem. "Inforty minutes, 1 got them th'ough sixproblems. John, I said to myself, some-thing happened there. Now a smart manwould know what it was. You're notsmart, so why don't you figure it out?"

Practice Makes Perfect

John Saxon, teller of this tale, is notabove playing the Dumb Rustic, or be-low speaking with an evangelist's tongue.The evangelism, at least, is appropriate(he's about as dumb as a fox), for heclaims the teaching method be figuredout on the basis of that day's experience11 years ago can double the scores ofAmerican high-school students learningalgebra a claim he has spent much ofhis time since then trying to demonstrateto a reluctant educational establishment.

In 1943, John Harold Saxon Jr.. age19, stepped out of northern Georgia andinto tbe Army Air Corps. He stuck withthe service through 27 years and threewars. Hying in combat, testing planes,and teaching electrical engineering at theAir Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

Back in civilian life, he became a math-ematics instructor at Oscar Rose JuniorCollege in Midwest City. Oklahoma, asuburb of Oklahoma City.

What Saxon discovered in his class-room was that though his students hadfollowed the lesson of the day, and ap-parently grasped the principles involved,when they were confronted with prob-lems based on that material, they stum-bled. Only after practice did the pointsink in.

Every mathematics textbook, of course,has homework problems based on newmaterial. Saxon's innovation—he calls it"general repetition"—was to keep as-signing similar problems to his classes,night after night. Each night's homework,therefore, consisted almost entirely ofold material, from every previous les-son. In effect, he extended the period ofpractice for each lesson throughout thewhole term.

"1 contend that algebra is a skill, likeplaying the piano," Saxon says. "You donot teach a child the piano by teachinghim music theory. Van Cliburn practices.Reggie Jackson practices. That is tbeway skills are mastered."

At first. Saxon photocopied sheets ofrepetitive problems and sold them at thebookstore as supplements to the standardtext. *'I did this for three semesters, andit was going gangbusters." It was astudent who first suggested that he ex-pand the supplements into a book. Hestarted it on a Christmas vacation andwrote through the spring, staying onestep ahead of his class. When the termended, he had a manuscript.

But no publisher. His first trip to NewYork, to sound out the established text-book publishing companies, was a wash.Saxon offered to test his method againsttraditional texts. "We won't even watch,"one publisher replied. "So I went backand pouted all fall." While pouting, Saxoncame to a conclusion. "I'm 56 years old.my days are numbered." If he wanted theSaxon method tested, he would have toarrange it himself.

Saxon put 15,000 miles on his car andtalked to two hundred teachers through-

out the state of Oklahoma. In theend, twenty teachers at twenty differentschools agreed to make the experimentduring the 1980-81 school year: 1,360ninth-grade algebra students were thesubjects; 519 of them used Saxon's ma-terial; the rest used the standard text.Saxon compiled 16 short tests fromquestions submitted by the teachers, andpersuaded the Oklahoma Federation ofTeachers to monitor the results.

It was a rout. The Saxon group out-scored the control group on every test.Even more impressive were the compar-isons between groups of students witbdifferent levels of ability. The Saxonstudents in the lowest of four groups (asmeasured by a standard test that all thestudents had taken before classes began)outscored not only their peers, but thecontrol students in the low-medium andhigh-medium groups as well. Only themost talented of the control studentsbested the least talented of the studentswho had learned from Saxon.

Saxon's success was reported in Timeand in an article he wrote for NATIONALREVIEW (Oct. 16. 1981). He bad decided,meanwhile, to publish his book himself.Algebra I came out under the imprint ofGrassdale Publishers. 1002 Lincoln Green.Norman. Okla. 73069 (Saxon's house).In 1982, he sold thirty thousand copiesby mail.

Answering the Critics

In the 1981-82 school year, Saxon rana second test. Nine high schools (eightin Oklahoma and one in California)compared students using Algebra I withstudents taking traditional courses insecond-year algebra. Saxon wrote a ten-part test, on which he hoped, at best,to make a good showing. To bis sur-prise, the Saxon students outscored theolder control group on nine of thetest's ten sections. "All the ragamuffinsand tatterdemalions blew the AlgebraII students out of the water."

Critics of Saxon assert that the testresults are skewed: It's no surprise thatSaxon students do better on exams thatSaxon wrote. But two large-scale testshave been given in which Saxon had nopart. In the 1981-82 school year, theOklahoma City school district had seventeachers teach one class each of Saxonand one of a standard text. At year'send, the students took an exam based onthe material in both books. Once again,the Saxon students beat the controls.

(Continues on page 1569)

December 9. 1983 / NATiONAt. REVIEW 1547

uniform and predictable; peopic who havea near-death experience ciearly perceive itas being real rather than imaginary; theexperience usually causes those who have itto iose their Icat ol dealh; and there areno delectable cultural, sociological, or envi-rorimenlal laclors making one person moreor loss iikely lo have a near-death expe-rience than another, Dr, Sabom sysiemali-caliv discounts all the attempts to explainaway the phenomenon- they range fromoulrighl iabrieation to the creation of amorphinc-likf subsumce by the dyingbrain withoul atlempling to advance anyalternative explanation of his own. Formany, of course, near-death experiencesneed no more "explaining" lhan docs theShroud of Turin; but Dr, Sabom's exeellenlbook wiil still give skeptics something toIhing about, heathens something to worryahout and believers somelhing lo dream

TiiRRV ll-AtHOlll

SHILOH ANI) OTHLR STOKIHS, by Bobhie

Ann Ma.snn (Harper Cotophon. 247 pp..5.f.y.Sj. Reading Shihh and Olher Storieswas for me like walking inlo a room fuliof old friends. The familiarity came, nolfrom having read these lovely stories be-fore, bul rather trom recognizing in BobbieAnn Mason's loving portrayal of Southernniouriiain people friends and neighbors otmy chiidhood. In ihis coliection, which is apaperback reprint of an earlier hardbackedition. Miss Mason has captured perfectlyihe idiom ol' ihc region without creatingearicalures. Many of these slories deal wilhchange and ihc dcsiruclion of time-honoredtraditions and patterns of living, which of-len leave Miss Mason's characters strandediike whales beached by a retreating tide,Lcroy Mofiitl. the centrai character of thetitle siory, "Shiloh," is one of those leftfloundering in a world he no longer rec-ognizes. Leroy has given up truck drivingbecause of ihc injuries he received in airaitic accident, and has filled his time bymaking various objects from craft kits be-cause he is nol sure what to do next. Buleven more bewildering to Leroy is thechange in his wife. Norma Jean: She isimproving her body by lifting weights andher mind by attending iht- communitycoilegc. Other things have changed, too.whiie he was not looking "The farmerswho used to gather around the courthousesquare on Saturday afternoons to piaycheckers and spit tobacco juice have gone.It has been years since Leroy thought;ibout the farmers and they have disap-peared withoul his noticing-" "Residentsand Transients" deals wilh another aspectof change. Mary Sue had reiurned to herwestern Kentucky home somewhat reiuc-tantly after collcgi;. bul now ihal her Yan-kee husband is being iransterred lo Louis-viilc. she tinds ihal she needs cornfieldsmsiead of streets. In "Detrtiil Skyiine.1949" a child Irom the Southern moun-

tains learns about television, tail buildings,and "Reds" when she visits her uncle andaunt in Detroit. These 16 stories are de-void of drama and tragedy in the classi-cal tradilion. perhaps, hut they are finelyand .lovingly drawn, NUHMA ft. wii.iiAMStiN

BROOKHISER(Continued from page 1547)

The Saxon metht)d was als(t tried,during the 19i<2-H3 school year, on 296remedial math students at the Universityof Arkansas in Fayetteville; 299 studentsformed the control group. Come spring.the Saxon students outscored the con-trol on both the departmental final andtbe Basic Algebra Test (Form IB) oftbe Mathematical Association of America.Beverly Reed, an Arkansas math teach-er who ran the study, started out "verymuch a skeptic" on Saxon, but nowfeels that "we need to look at it serious-ly. It follows good teaching practices."

Teachers' testimonials are not hard locome by. Alter tbe success of Algebra I,Saxon brought oul a higher level book.Algebra / ' A Sister Mary Magdalene (Al-amo Catholic High School, AmariMo,Texas) cails it "the best book I haveever seen." Sbe plans to make liie stu-dents who have used regular Algebra II

texts go through Saxon's / ' / : before go-ing on to trigonometry. Doris McDonald(Tatum High School. Tatum. New Mex-ico) saw her students "doing math Ididn't ihink first-year kids could do. Theydidn't know it was bard." Diana Harvey(Hillsboro High School. Hillsboro. Ohio)found students she taught from Saxonin the I982-H3 school year doubling thescores of their peers. "He's not teach-ing different stuff. Why otber textbookshaven't done it his way. I don't know."

John Saxon knows: because olher text-books were written by "pedagogical spas-tics." But his message is longer on hopetban indignation. "There is nothingwrong with our students; iherc is noth-ing wrong wilh iheir teachers. If studentsget enough practice, they can learn." D

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