Thanksgiving Eve Post

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Floyd Thursby Day and Traditionalists
3. Back to Barry Garelick
4. Commenter: Scott Draper
5. Commenter: Wayne Bishop
6. Commenter: SteveH
7. Commenter: Richard Phelps
8. Commenter: Ze'ev Wurman
9. T-Minus: The Race to the Moon, Pages 1-45
10. Conclusion

Introduction

Today is the day before Thanksgiving. This marks the first of two special posts that I'm blogging during Thanksgiving break.

This is the week during which nearly everyday has a special day. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Thursday, is followed by Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. For some reason, Sunday doesn't have a special name -- perhaps it should something like Airplane Sunday, Flight Sunday, or Travel Sunday, since it's often the biggest travel day of the year.

Meanwhile, I have occasionally seen names for the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Some names for today, the day before Thanksgiving, refer to alcohol -- these include Black Wednesday, adding "out" to "Black," or changing "Thanks" to "Drinks." Since this is an educational blog, I don't wish to advocate alcohol here on the blog. (This despite my word "dren" being indirectly related to "drunk" -- both of which are based on spelling words backwards.)

Instead, perhaps we should call today Pizza Wednesday. The day before Thanksgiving is considered one of the five biggest pizza days of the year -- the others are Halloween, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and Super Bowl Sunday. But those other days already have established names or refer to events other than pizza.

For the title of this post, though, I'll just stick to "Thanksgiving Eve."

Floyd Thursby Day and Traditionalists

I have my own personal name for yesterday -- Floyd Thursby Day. I named it after a traditionalist commenter, "Floyd Thursby," whose most common complaint was that too many teachers took off the Tuesday before Thanksgiving (in a district whose calendar has no school Wednesday-Sunday for the holiday).

Here's a link to the Edsource thread that inspired my name "Floyd Thursby Day":

https://edsource.org/2014/declaring-war-on-teachers-rights-wont-improve-childrens-access-to-a-sound-education/56538/56538

Last year, I made my big pre-Thanksgiving post on Floyd Thursby Day. This year, my plan was not post on Tuesday, because Floyd Thursby is no longer an active poster. A Google search reveals that he hasn't posted at all in 2019. So there shouldn't be any reason for me to make a big deal about Floyd Thursby vis-a-vis any other traditionalist.

But to this day, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving is a day I associate with traditionalism. And as it just so happens, another traditionalist made his first post in months on Floyd Thursby Day.

Before we go to that traditionalist, I point out that maybe I should call it "Floyd Tuesday" instead of "Floyd Thursby Day," so that it's more in line with Black Friday and Cyber Monday. "Thursby Tuesday" is awkward only because "Thursby" sounds so much like "Thursday." (Recall that "Floyd Thursby" isn't the commenter's real name -- it's a literary character.)

Back to Barry Garelick

The traditionalist who posted yesterday is, of course, Barry Garelick:

https://traditionalmath.wordpress.com/2019/11/26/how-much-deeper-understanding-do-students-really-need-dept/

In a recent op-ed in the LA Times, Dan Willingham, a professor in the department of psychology at the University of Virginia, addresses a particular aspect of math education in the U.S.  Blaming poor math performance on bad curricula, he argues, overlooks that elementary school teachers may not have the deep understanding of math that is required to teach it. In fact they may actually fear math.

Let me quote some parts of Willingham's article here:

Dan Willingham:
The equal sign is another mathematical concept that’s often misunderstood. It means, of course, that whatever is on either side of the equal sign is equivalent. But many elementary students don’t understand the meaning of the equal sign. To them, it doesn’t signify equality, but instead means “put the answer here.” Imagine their confusion when, in algebra, they first encounter problems with numbers on both sides of the equal sign.

OK, so this yet another traditionalists' post debating the importance of understanding in math -- in short, Willingham and like-minded thinkers believe that there isn't enough emphasis here, while the traditionalists argue that there's too much emphasis here:

Willingham suggests that the solution might then be to find and hire those teachers who have “deep math knowledge” and who know how to convey it. I have no problem with hiring teachers who have a thorough understanding of math. What troubles me are the premises that students are doing fine with math facts and standard algorithms. Also I question the notion that providing students with a deeper understanding of math is what is needed to improve math education and its outcomes.

As usual, Garelick steers the conversation towards math facts and standard algorithms. He believes that the struggles of American math students are due to a lack of knowledge of math facts and standard algorithms rather than failing to understand equality.

But in Willingham's article, he writes:

This interpretation — that students lack conceptual understanding, and this absence of understanding matters more as math gets more difficult — fits the pattern of standardized test scores. As students advance, the percentage meeting grade-level targets on the NAEP declines. A similar trend is observed in international comparisons; American fourth-graders compete fairly well, but high-schoolers trail students from most other industrialized nations.

I'd like to see Garelick or another traditionalist address this. If the big problem is that American students don't know math facts or standard algorithms, then why aren't our fourth grade scores just as low as our twelfth grade scores? Instead, Garelick continues to criticize non-traditionalist math:

Over the past three decades—in large part propelled by NCTM’s standards that came out in 1989—the preoccupation with understanding has manifested itself with a de-emphasis on learning math facts. Also, standard algorithms for the basic operations are delayed while students are presented with alternate strategies that require making drawings or using convoluted methods. Such methods are nothing new; they were taught in the past, but after students had learned and mastered the standard algorithms. Now, however, they are taught first in the name of providing the conceptual understanding behind why standard algorithms work as they do. Simple concepts are made more complex under what passes as “deeper understanding.” Students I have seen entering high schools do not know their math facts, and use alternate inefficient strategies for simple operations such as multiplication.

To what "inefficient strategies for...multiplication" is Garelick referring here? I suspect he means the lattice method, which can be just as rigorous as, yet less confusing than, the standard algorithm.

The NCTM standards that Garelick mentions here (and on which the U of Chicago text is based) were, of course, the forerunner to the Common Core Standards:

The Common Core standards have effectively cemented in the math reform ideology that is increasingly incorporated in today’s elementary school textbooks. Adding to that are the bevy of ineffective teaching methods (inquiry- and problem-based learning, group work, so called differentiated instruction) pushed upon teachers in ed school and in professional development seminars. Teachers who elect to teach standard algorithms and teach in traditional manners are sometimes told to teach their lessons with “fidelity” to textbooks they are required to use. Young teachers who fear for their jobs will do so. Older teachers who may have the understanding that Willingham would like to see are sometimes told the same. Unlike the younger teachers, the older ones can simply retire.  And unlike the older teachers, the younger ones are likely the products of the ineffective math teaching I just described; they are likely as confused as many of the students we are seeing today.

Garelick moves on to the division of fractions, a sixth-grade standard:

Add to this the confusion around what constitutes “understanding” in students. What educationists believe is understanding is in most cases visualization—drawing diagrams that demonstrate what two-thirds divided by three-fourths looks like.  That is not at all what a mathematician means by understanding.  Also, being made to use formulaic “explanations” and dragging work out far longer than necessary with multiple procedures and awkward, bulky explanations is not a sign of understanding.

We already know what Garelick means here. Using the standard algorithm, a student should be able to find (2/3) / (3/4) = (2/3) * (4/3) = 8/9 in under a minute, while it might take over a minute just to draw the pictures. This is why Garelick wants to drop the pictures and just teach the algorithms.

OK, Garelick, suppose we were to give our students, at the end of sixth grade, a list of twenty, or even ten, fraction problems with mixed operations. How many of our sixth graders will consistently choose the correct algorithm at the right time to solve all the problems? And how many sixth graders will instead try to add the denominators for addition/subtraction problems, or even find a common denominator for multiplication/division problems?

The idea of drawing pictures is to show students why the algorithms differ for each operation, so that they'll know consistently which algorithm to choose. If it's not obvious to a student why we need common denominators for addition/subtraction, that student is less likely to find the common denominator when it's needed.

Here, by the way, is Willingham's solution to the problem:

Dan Willingham:
Rather than coaching others, the best math teachers should teach children. A corps of teachers with deep understanding of math and how to convey it could be full-time math instructors, beginning in kindergarten. It would be hard for someone with such limited contact to know the students well, and student-teacher relationships do affect student learning. Some schools find it worth it to use specialized instructors to teach music or physical education. The same should hold true for math.

I admit that kindergarten is a bit too young to have a specialist math teacher. In past posts, I once mentioned a "Path Plan" that provides specialist teachers for different subjects -- but even then, the youngest grade for which I ever proposed having more than one teacher is first, not kindergarten. As I later pointed out, some believe that even fifth grade is too early to have more than one teacher.

Commenter: Scott Draper

Let's get on with the comment thread. We begin with Scott Draper:

Scott Draper:
Totally agree. The scary fact that I think teachers don’t like to acknowledge is that students remember very little of what you teach them; they certainly won’t remember the “deeper understanding” aspect. That only comes with time, maturity, and practice.

The scary fact that I think traditionalists don't like to acknowledge is that students remember very little of what you teach them; they certainly won't remember all of the standard algorithms, and possibly not even all of their math facts.

Yes, Draper -- two can play at that game.

Scott Draper:
The main benefit to teaching the “why?” is that failure to supply the answer to that is that some students won’t buy into what you’re selling if you don’t. Once you tell them why something works, that obstacle disappears and they’re willing to learn what you’re teaching, although they later can’t remember your explanation.

OK, I'll partly agree with Draper here. Returning to Garelick's example of fractions, if all we have to do is show the "why" once (by drawing the diagram) and then that's enough for the students not to leave the assignment blank, then that's fine. We don't need to make them keep drawing diagrams at that point.

I admit that students' blank problems are a major issue of mine in the traditionalist debates. But another is their confusion with when to find a common denominator and when to operate on the denominators and numerators. My question is, does drawing pictures help students know when to perform which algorithm, by showing why a particular algorithm is needed?

Let's return to the example from earlier:

(2/3) + (3/4) =
(3/4) - (2/3) =
(2/3) * (3/4) =
(2/3) / (3/4)

Now imagine a student who tries to answer the addition problem by adding the denominators -- despite having been taught several times that adding the denominators is wrong. We can then show why adding thirds to fourths doesn't yield sevenths by drawing a diagram. The traditionalist would instead have to show the addition algorithm again -- and then the student might overcorrect by trying to find a common denominator for the division problem.

And so I believe that there's still a place for drawing pictures to solve fraction problems. Give me a class that seldom confuses these algorithms and there will no longer be a need for pictures.

By the way, when I subbed in a seventh grade math class last week, I saw one student attempt to find a common denominator for the following type of problem:

(2 + 3)/(3 + 4)

This is more like a PEMDAS problem than an addition of fractions problem. (Actually, the numerator was something more like 32 + 3, so that the answer would be an integer.)

Commenter: Wayne Bishop

We proceed with a comment from Wayne Bishop:

Wayne Bishop:
That was my reaction to Willingham’s op-ed as well; he has a history of being sensible and correct but it is too easy to take this one as an endorsement of Common Core or the NCTM non-standards.

So according to Bishop, the Common Core Standards are "non-standards." I wonder what sort of standards he would accept as being true "standards" rather than "non-standards." If Bishop is like most other traditionalists, then his true standards likely include either eighth grade Algebra I or senior year AP Calculus.

(And it goes without saying that when he says that Willingham is sometimes "sensible and correct," he means that the op-ed writer sometimes agrees with the traditionalists.)

Wayne Bishop:

The deep understanding that teachers need to have and to develop in their students is not a bunch of inefficient approaches or alternative algorithms instead of the standard algorithms of arithmetic and their usage. The correct deep understanding is as described by Liping Ma in her wonderful little book, Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics. She called it PUFM, Profound Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics, and assessed US elementary mathematics teachers negatively in comparison with those of her native China. The Chinese teachers were not only competent in the algorithms of arithmetic (that could not be consistently said of the US ones) they were able to “on the spot” create little word problems for which their solutions required the arithmetic. In this, the US teachers were almost at a complete loss. The Chinese teachers’ years of preparation, by contrast with ours, reflected that PUFM already at their early professional preparation. They were recruited at roughly our high school junior year followed by only a year or two of something akin to our old “normal schools”, the one year of college my mother had in preparation for teaching elementary school. New teachers are not then simply dumped into their own independent classrooms but work closely with experienced teachers who have been deemed particularly effective. What a concept.

Hmm, this sounds interesting. I've never read Liping Ma's book, and so I can't be exactly sure what this PUFM looks like. Thus I shouldn't really comment on it.

But Bishop does mention "normal schools." I've noticed that several traditionalists seem to be nostalgic for the days when teachers were trained via normal schools as opposed to our now common credentialing programs. I'm not quite sure why traditionalists find the "normal schools" superior -- except for the obvious difference that the normal schools promoted traditionalist math, while modern credentialing programs don't.

Also, Bishop tells us that "new teachers...work closely with experienced teachers" in China, but I don't see how that is significantly different from American student teaching.

Commenter: SteveH

I'm glad that I waited until today to blog, rather than yesterday, Floyd Thursby Day. That's because the extra day allowed time for a certain commenter -- of course, you already know who it is:

SteveH:
For a lot of people, it’s all about them – their area of specialty. It’s fine that he raises the math “anxiety” issue for elementary school teachers, but he then uses that to push his own (non-math expert) idea of what the solution is. His only real contribution to the debate is that because of the average “math anxiety” of non-math-certified teachers, then schools should hire specialists. I have no argument with that.

OK, so far we have one point of agreement between SteveH and Willingham. As I wrote above, I wonder whether we really need math specialists in kindergarten.

SteveH:
Many dislike anecdotal knowledges and cases, but anecdotes contain all of the information of what’s going on. If you study enough of them, then you will be able to split the issues and see patterns. If you just look at yearly state test results to decide “one thing” to fix (“additional vetting … in the classroom”), then you will always fail. Those who do the vetting are part of the problem, AND there is no ONE problem. You can’t collect “big data” and assume that all of the important information remains or that your biases won’t make you to see only what you want to see.

This sounds as if SteveH is opposing standardized tests (the "big data" of school). Of course, we know that it must be more complicated than that -- we know that he at least accepts the AP and IB tests, and possibly SAT/ACT as well. He only opposes the Common Core tests.

SteveH:
Willingham should know that this is a big systemic and psychological problem, not just one about “understanding.” Maybe he thinks the problem is us math experts, but we’re the ones who have lived it day-by-day, have done actual teaching in class, and have ensured that our kids are STEM ready. However, I had my son’s Kindergarten teacher lecture me about “understanding” in math. I’m not kidding. His first grade teacher told me that “Yes, he has a lot of superficial knowledge.” Anecdotes bite, but big data hides. Yearly state tests pass the buck so that parents are left a year late and many tutoring dollars short, and the big 7th grade math tracking decision ends up as a big whack in the head by a brick. I’ve talked to those capable kids and their parents. It’s too late for most. Their approach has been going on for at least two decades. Where are the results? When will reality break through assumptions? Willingham should study that.

OK, so the "anecdotes" that SteveH referred to earlier are his son's teachers in Grades K-1 and how they treated his son. Presumably, the "superficial knowledge" that his son had back then is that which traditionalists highly value -- knowledge of math facts and the standard algorithm (most likely of addition at that level). But instead of praising his son for being smart at math, his teachers made the above statements.

This is a tricky one. It's possible that someone who's great at addition in first grade might struggle with fractions years later -- adding the denominators instead of finding a common denominator. It's possible that someone with a "deeper understanding" in first grade is more likely to become a fifth grader who doesn't get the fraction algorithms mixed up.

But then, if I said all this to SteveH, he'd remind me that his son now has a math degree. He'd tell me that his son had no problems with fractions on his way to college -- and that it was all thanks to traditionalist teaching -- from SteveH himself and tutors (as he writes in this post). Therefore to him, the teachers in Grades K-1 were wrong to criticize his son -- they should have praised him and taught traditionally so that more students in his class were more like his son.

We already know what SteveH's "big 7th grade math tracking decision" is -- either the students are sent to his favored eighth grade Algebra I and senior year AP Calc classes, or else they're, as he puts it, "whacked in the head by a brick."

SteveH:
However, this requires a deemphasis of quantitative mastery skills. They have to “fuzzify” the difference between the best prepared students and the worst prepared students. In comes vague conceptual understanding ideas as the basis for proper development in math. Add to that their love of mixed-ability group learning that assigns too much importance and value to engagement.

To me, "engagement" means "not leaving assignments blank." How much do students learn more from -- a group assignment that they think is fun and actually work on, or a traditionalist p-set that they think is boring and leave blank?

SteveH:
We STEM parents will not let our kids fail, so we ensure proper mastery at home. That’s what I had to do for even my “math brain” son in K-6. I have so many examples of K-6 teacher-to-parent push-backs in terms of their assumptions and how they do things. We would never dare to challenge that. Thankfully, that all went away in high school.

OK, so that's SteveH's usual "fuzziness" of K-6 math vs. the "reality" of high school math.

SteveH:
I think a lot of this is their idea of natural learning where they present the grand ideas and provide engagement so that the rote skills will flow automatically. Just look at the music world. It ain’t gonna happen. Practice your scales, exercises, and etudes. Those are not just musically rote. There is subtle musical understanding going on. Educators have to deal with reality and not hide behind the vagueness of yearly tests. I was on a parent-teacher committee once where we discussed the school’s lower “problem solving” scores. Their solution? Spend more time on problem solving. It’s not rocket science (or STEM) thinking that’s going on here. It’s much simpler, but more difficult, than that.

Last week I subbed in a music class. It was vocal music, but next door was the band room. Take a guess what I heard coming from the band room that day. You're right -- either F-E-F or Bb-A-Bb. (In this case, I thought I heard both F-E-F and Bb-A-Bb.)

And so, SteveH wonders, why can't we teach math facts and standard algorithms -- the mathematical equivalent of F-E-F? Once again, I believe that students won't complete a task unless it is either easy, fun, or high-status. Musicians are high-status in our society, and so they are willing to perform tasks that are neither easy nor fun (as in F-E-F) in order to be successful. But mathematicians are definitely not high-status in our society, and so we must make tasks either easy or fun in order to avoid having students just leave the tasks blank. That's why F-E-F works for music but not math.

Commenter: Richard Phelps

The last commenter in the Barry Garelick thread is Richard Phelps:

Richard Phelps:
Also, I wonder if there is any bottom to deeper knowledge (a.k.a., “depth of knowledge” (DOK)) or deeper understanding. If there is no clear end to the process, it may be no more useful than an infinite programming loop or a Rube Goldberg machine. When I hear calls for deeper thinking or deeper understanding, my mind pulls up a picture of a child repeatedly asking “why?” after every explanation a parent gives them. Every why could be a valid question that could evoke a reasonable, substantive response. But, annoyance factor aside, at some point the next additional answer is not adding a whole lot to a child’s understanding of the initial concept.

Yes, it's possible for the "whys" to go on ad infinitum. Yes, it's possible to keep asking why 1 + 1 = 2 all the way until we reach Russell and Whitehead's axioms, or why 2 + 2 = 4 all the way until we reach the Metamath proof, or at the very least Peano's axioms.

To me, the only person who can stop the endless stack of "whys" is the one who asked these questions -- the student. If the student keeps asking "why" and leaves the assignment blank, then we must keep answering until the student stops talking and starts working. In this context, this includes "Why must we follow the standard algorithm?" (for multiplying, or adding fractions) or "Why can't we just add the denominators?" Otherwise, the student will leave the assignment blank.

Richard Phelps:
At some point, the next tiny possible addition to the child’s understanding is outweighed by the possible subtraction from understanding from the loss of clarity (due to the amorphousness and weight of all possible relevant explanations, no matter how tangential) and from the loss of time–there are opportunity costs. Conceivably, a student could spend twelve years learning basic arithmetic very, very well. By, in doing so, they will not be exposed to all the other math topics. Isn’t this why the allegedly “deeper” and “more rigorous” Common Core math is so slow?

I often point out that there's another teaching situation where "Why?" questions are regularly asked -- during classroom management. Thus we may hear, "Why do we have to follow this rule?" -- and an answer such as "to respect order in the classroom" might also be followed by "Why?" In past posts, I wrote that the ultimate answer to these "Why?" questions is, "Because I said so"

In mathematics, the analog of "Because I said so!" is a postulate. At some point, we must make basic assumptions that can't and shouldn't be proved, but must be taken on faith.

Phelps implies that traditionalist ideas -- basic math facts and standard algorithms -- should be taken as postulates that require no further explanation. He laments that "Common Core math is so slow" -- the idea being that if we can just get through math facts and standard algorithms fast, the students can get to eighth grade Algebra I.

But once again, if students don't know why they must do something, they'll leave it blank. Students who leave math assignments blank aren't getting to Algebra I quickly.

Commenter: Ze'ev Wurman

Even though Richard Phelps and SteveH are the last commenters at Barry Garelick, there's also a concurrent thread on the Willingham article at the Joanne Jacobs website:

https://www.joannejacobs.com/2019/11/when-teachers-dont-understand-math/

One of the commenters here is a major traditionalist, Ze'ev Wurman. But I must first quote another poster, Dennis Ashendorf, since Wurman's points are in response to Ashendorf's:

Dennis Ashendorf:

This is unpleasant to discuss, because it’s a cultural choice that isn’t efficient.

1. Children in elementary prefer having one teacher for all topics.
2. Math specialists haven’t given better results – as far as I know.
3. Yet, Math specialists are NEEDED more in Elementary than Secondary.
4. Third and Fourth grade are filled with subtle thought. Tests don’t show what must actually be understood (eg It’s the identity property that allows fractions to be renamed and this same identity property is what allows people to say “there is no such thing as division, just flip and multiply” which is standard nonsense.
5. Many American K6 teachers choose teaching K6 because math isn’t normally their strong suit.
6. Better curricula can help. For example Bridges or Japan Math. Still, showing the essence is very hard.
7. Bottomline: the benefits of good math instruction show up in future math classes, not the current one. Therefore, we’re caught in a loop unless we adopt a coherent progression in the curricula.

(Hmm, Ashendorf's #2-#3 appear to contradict each other. If math specialists haven't given better results, then why are they needed in elementary school?)

Ze'ev Wurman:

1. Evidence or not, this seems to be common practice around the whole world. Including in educationally high-achieving countries. Nevertheless, it’s not exclusive and specialist teachers do enter elementary classrooms in topics such as science or PE. So why not math?

2 lack of documented success in the US does not negate the point but rather its implementation. Some countries show success.

3.I think the point is valid, even if it was inartfully expressed. We already have math specialists in higher grades and we may need them also in elementary grades.

4.. Elementary tests, quite naturally, focus on lower-level skills and may, or may not, be good predictors for higher-level skills. That would be one possibility for explaining the drop in higher grade achievement. Another one would be that the higher grades curriculum treads water and wastes time, which happens to be my own belief after extensive analysis of Common Core standards.

5. Actually, it is not absurd, but the explanation is a bit more complicated. Elementary teachers as a group are characterized by emotional affinity with young children more than by their intellectual/academic performance (a lot of exceptions, obviously). It is likely that such group will tend to have weakness in its math affinity or preparation unless special attention is given to remedy that.

6. Better curricula might help them, where by “curriculum” I mean not only the content but also the pedagogy used in the classrooms. We seem to have weaknesses in both, yet educationally high-achieving countries show that relatively- young children can master serious intellectual concepts. For example, 4th and 5th graders in some South-Eastern Asian countries routinely solve math problems that our 8th graders struggle with. That doesn’t mean curricula alone, though—teacher training is important too.

7. Actually, there is a lot of research showing that under-challenging high ability students stymies their development. The belief that such kids don’t need challenge and guidance is simply wrong.

Note: this is not the response I would pen of my own volition, but the dismissive attitude of education_realist seemed to demand it. The issues are much more complex than can be summarized in a few bullet points.

OK, so at least Wurman addresses Ashendorf's #2 -- maybe math specialists would be successful if we actually had more of them. (Again, that's where my "Path Plan" comes in.)

In his #4, Wurman states that the reason for the drop in high school is that the high school curriculum "wastes time." In the past, he mentioned how the focus on transformations in Geometry is considered to be such a time-waster.

But then maybe we "tread water" slow down in high school because many students would find a rigorous, say, Algebra II class to be too difficult. If this is the case, then speeding up Algebra II won't improve NAEP scores, because such students will still get those problems wrong on the test.

T-Minus: The Race to the Moon, Pages 1-45

Here's something I have that might encourage students to try harder in math -- a reminder of why exactly we need to learn math. To me, those who excel in math are heroes -- and what better way to see this than to read Jim Ottaviani's series of science comic books!

As I promised, I will read Ottaviani's T-Minus: The Race to the Moon this week. I wanted to read this book before the 50th anniversary year (of the moon landing) ends, and so I ordered this book to arrive in time for Thanksgiving break.

So let's dive right in. The opening scene takes place at T-minus 12 years -- that is, twelve years before the first moon landing.

Radio: ...new UN headquarters in the Big Apple.
Scientist #1: Hooey.

This scene is set at NACA -- Langley, Virginia, 1957. In a footnote, Ottaviani explains: "NACA = National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Guess what it becomes? ...soon! (Hint: replace the C with another letter.)" But of course, we don't need to guess -- NACA became NASA. This is actually explained in the Hidden Figures book -- Katherine Johnson first worked at NACA. (But this isn't mentioned in the movie at all.)

Scientist #2: "Huee"? What's that stand for?
Scientist #1: Doesn't stand for anything. That's what President Eisenhower called the RAND report.
Scientist #2: What's a RAND report?
Scientist #1: C'mon, you know... "Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship."
Scientist #2: (changing the radio to music) He called it "Hooey."
Scientist #1: Ah, that's years ago, and that's politicians. You can't expect them to understand our sort of thing.
Scientist #2: Well, sure, but a world-circling spaceship? That is hooey. (turning off the radio) Tell 'em, C.C.
C.C.: Aw, I dunno 'bout that.

Let's move forward a few pages. T-minus 11 years, 10 months:

Scientist #1: Well, that's what I heard. The Russkies, they --
Scientist #2: Ah, don't you believe it. If our boy von Braun can't even get his Jupiter Rocket to launch, how can the Russkies put up a satellite?
Scientist #1: It's just a matter of time, fellas. All the attention is because it's the International Geophysical Year, that's all.
Scientist #2: A made up thing -- heck! It's not even a year. It's a year and a half.

Here's a footnote from Ottaviani: "International Geophysical Year = IGY = 1957-1958 -- A year when scientists around the world agreed to study the Earth, from pole to pole. It's true -- the IGY was eighteen months long. Those crazy scientists..." (And you thought that the eleven-day "Red Ribbon Week" was crazy this year!)

Scientist #2: What do you think, C.C.?
C.C.: 'Bout what -- rockets? Satellites? This is what I think: why don't we put a man on top o' one of 'em?
(They all laugh.)

We now view a scene from the Russian perspective. They are about to launch Sputnik I. In footnotes, Ottaviani writes, "The real Sputnik 1, not the model, weighed 184 lb. The R-7 rocket: An impressive 100 ft. tall and 280 tons -- but only one successful launch so far."

Russian: Chief? What's the plan? (Note: Ottaviani uses a backward "N" in the middle of the text to indicate that it's in the Russian language.)
Chief: Well, future missions will have animals -- maybe a dog -- and then after that we go to... Ah, you mean today. Start the countdown. We're already 17 days late for Tsiolkovsky's 100th birthday as it is.

Of course, the Sputnik I is launched successfully. From the American perspective:

Scientist: Huh. Got to do something about that.

Ottaviani writes, "Though the crystal ball is cloudy, two things seem clear."

1. A satellite vehicle with appropriate instrumentation can be expected to be one of the most potent scientific tools of the twentieth century.
2. The achievement of a satellite craft by the United States would inflame the imagination of mankind...

RAND Report "Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship" -- May, 1946

The plan now is to launch a satellite called Mercury-Redstone I:

Scientist #1: And what were you thinking here? I can't believe you didn't allow for...

Scientist #2: That's the way you do it. Put in some superfluous details... Tell C.C. it's done...

Scientist #1: And you're guaranteed it will be done... when he's finished with it! And by the way, Mercury is going to be more like an escape capsule than anything else. Won't be a spacecraft until the astronaut can steer it.

(in C.C.'s office)

Scientist #1: Okay, so... Most of what happens up there will have to be from a control room. Any idea how that's going to look?

C.C.: Pretty much like my secretary's desk over there. Maybe another phone or two... and a teleprinter.

Ottaviani explains: "Teleprinter = like email, only with gears and a typewriter-like printer (no screen). No graphics, but lots of sound."

Scientist #1: A few phones? You're nuts. Maybe that's okay for a simple up-and-down flight, but... if we put somebody in orbit..."

Soon the Mercury is ready to launch:

Scientist: 3-2-1-Liftoff!

Spectator: Where...

(The escape tower explodes. The launch is unsuccessful.)

T-minus 8 years, 3 months, 8 days. Baikonur Cosmodrome -- 1961.

Reporter: OK, Lieutenant Gagarin -- recording.

Yuri Gagarin: Dear friends, known and unknown to me... My dear compatriots, and all people of the world! ...Minutes from now, a mighty Soviet rocket will boost my ship into the vastness of space. What I want to tell you is this. My whole like is now before me as a single breathtaking moment..."

Mission Control: Dawn, calling Cedar.

Gagarin: Cedar, here.

Mission Control: Check and see if you can reach the envelope with the combination to unlock the manual controls.

Gagarin: Yes, easily.

Mission Control: Good, never mind the flight surgeons -- I know you will have no psychological problems in space, my little eagle. But I am also confident you won't need to fly the capsule yourself. I have everything under control from here.

Ottaviani explains: "Flight surgeon = Military medical officer." (The cosmonaut sings "alone along")

Assistant: This is Dawn, calling Cedar.

Mission Control: That's what I wanted to hear, shut that off. T-minus 15 minutes. T-minus 5 minutes.

Gagarin: Feeling the excellent spirits. (singing "...walk alone along the...") Roger, Dawn.

Mission Control: T-minus 1 minute. We wish you a good flight.

Gagarin: Poyekhali! (Ottaviani translates this as "Let's go!"

Mission Control: Preliminary stage... Intermediate stage... Main... Liftoff!

The Vostok I flight is successful. Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to orbit the earth on April 12th, 1961 -- the flight lasted an hour and 48 minutes.

This flight gets the Americans' attention. President Kennedy announces that the US will land a man on the moon by the end of the decade of the 1960's:

Kennedy (on radio): No single space project in this period will be more impressive... None will be so difficult to accomplish.

C.C.: Is he crazy? How could he say "before this decade is out"?!

Kennedy: ...In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon...

C.C.: It's one thing to sit around a table at noontime and play cards and flap our gums about going to the moon.

Kennedy: ...It will be an entire nation, for all of us must --

C.C. (turning off the radio): It's another thing for the President of the United States... to all of a sudden tell the whole world what we'r flapping our gums about!

Scientist #1: So what? We have designs... NASA can do this.

C.C.: C'mon, Max. You know as well as I do that Kennedy was right about that part at least... It ain't going to be just NASA.

The final scene takes place right here in Southern California -- near the Jet Propulsion Lab and North American Aviation:

Wife: Where are you off to this time, Stormy?

Stormy: Meeting von Braun later today.

Wife: Where?

Stormy: Huntsville. Gotta stop at the plant first, but then Alabama.

Conclusion

Well, that concludes my Floyd Thursby Day -- I meant Drensgiving -- I meant pre-Thanksgiving -- traditionalists' post. Let's see whether that Willingham article will generate any more discussion about these issues.

I will make one more holiday post during Turkey Day weekend.