A more helpful phrasing might have been something like:
"Some subscribers to Math-Teach might be interested in an article 'How Old Is the Shepherd? An Essay About Mathematics Education' [Merseth (1993)]."
Wayne Bishop (2014a) responded "Why didn't you tell us it was the Kappan and save us the trouble?"
Unfortunately, Washbume not only failed to indicate that <http://hub.mspnet.org/index.cfm/9217> brings up an article in the Kappan but also failed to mention that he is revisiting old territory. In an earlier Math-Teach post "Who's to blame? [Washbume (2014b} wrote (slightly edited, my inserts at ". . . . .[[insert]]. . . . ."):
"Watch the video 'How Old is the Shepherd' <http://bit.ly/1rNDNj7> . . . . . .[[attributed to Robert Kaplinsky <http://bit.ly/1udkCG8> by Tracy Zager <http://bit.ly/13vKEJN>, evidently with no knowledge of the article "How Old Is the Shepherd? An Essay About Mathematics Education" [Merseth (1993)]]. . . . . . . then choose the best answer to the following multiple-choice question:
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These results can most accurately be called the fault of:
A. NCTM;
B. the Common Core State Standards;
C. Arne Duncan;
D. Barack Obama;
E. teachers' unions.
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I responded in Hake (2014) [bracketed by lines "HHHHH. . . . ."]:
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
The fact that the students respond to questions such as:
"Wayne Bishop has 1 dog and 2 bicycles.
How old is Wayne Bishop?" with the answer "3" is NOT the fault of NCTM, CCSS, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, or teachers' unions.
It's the fault of traditionalist math warriors such as Wayne Bishop!
Check out item #1 "Rote Learning" at the Benezet Centre <http://bit.ly/926tiM>: Here is problem 5 from Benezet's list of problems:
"The distance from Boston to Portland by water is 120 miles. Three steamers leave Boston, simultaneously, for Portland. One makes the trip in 10 hours, one in 12, and one in 15. How long will it be before all 3 reach Portland?"
In the ninth-grade students in Manchester, traditionally taught. . . . . .[[by the passive-student drill-and- practice method advocated by such as Wayne Bishop]]. . . . 6 out of 29 gave the right answer; the experimental second grade. . . . .[[using Benezet's 3 R method: Read, Reason, and Recite − where "recite" did not mean giving back, verbatim, the words of the teacher or of the textbook but speaking the English language]]. . . . . had an almost perfect score. Probably many of the ninth graders gave 37 as the answer. At least, that is the result of arithmetic teaching today . . . . . . .
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Wayne Bishop (2014) responded with (my CAPS):
"Thanks for asking but I have no trouble with would-be education reformers making outrageous statements at my expense. I do have a problem with the damage they sometimes inflict on innocent students but the insults won't change that. I've always been a bit amused by these folks making such outrageous statements to escape the fact that, collectively speaking, STUDENTS EDUCATED BY THEIR RECEIVED WISDOM SCORE AS WOULD BE EXPECTED. What to do? Kill the messenger so people will miss the message."
"Students educated by their received wisdom score as would be expected" ?? Miracle Mirabilis: WAYNE IS RIGHT!
Introductory course physics students enrolled in "interactive engagement" courses advocated by reformers score about two standard deviations in average normalized pre-to-postest gain on the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) [Hestenes et al. (1992)] ABOVE students enrolled in the traditional passive-student lecture courses advocated by traditionalist math warriors such as Wayne Bishop – see e.g., "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses" [Hake (1998a)].
REFERENCES [URLs shortened by <http://bit.ly/> and accessed on 2 Nov 2014.]
Bishop, W. 2014a. "Re: How Old Is the Shepherd? An Essay About Mathematics Education," online on the OPEN! Math-Teach archives at <http://bit.ly/1wWgpo0>. Post of 02 Nov 12:56 AM (the Math-Forum fails to specify the time zone) to Math-Teach.
Bishop, W. 2014b. "Re: Who's to blame?" online on the OPEN! Math-Teach archives at <http://bit.ly/1rNL7v9>. Post of 20 Oct 11:51 PM (the Math-Forum fails to specify the time zone) to Math-Teach.
Hake, R.R. 1998a. "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses," Am. J. Phys. 66(1): 64-74; online as an 84 kB pdf at <http://bit.ly/9484DG>. See also Hake (1998b).
Hake, R.R. 1998b. “Interactive-engagement methods in introductory mechanics courses,” online as a 108 kB pdf at <http://bit.ly/aH2JQN>. A crucial companion paper to Hake (1998a).
Hake, R.R. 2004. "Re: Who's to blame?" online on the OPEN! Math-Teach archives at <http://bit.ly/1tQc3zQ>. Post of 20 Oct 12:31 PM (the Math-Forum fails to specify the time zone) to Math-Teach.
Halloun, I., R.R. Hake, E.P. Mosca, & D. Hestenes. 1995. "Force Concept Inventory (1995 Revision)," online (password protected) at <http://bit.ly/b1488v>, scroll down to "Evaluation Instruments." Currently available in 27 languages: Arabic, Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Croatian, Czech, Dutch, English, Finnish (Suomi), French (Canadian), French (France), German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian (Italiano), Japanese, Malaysian (Bahasa), Norwegian, Persian, Polish Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, & Turkish.
Hestenes, D., M. Wells, & G. Swackhamer. 1992. "Force Concept Inventory," Phys. Teach. 30(3): 141-158; online as a 100 kB pdf at <http://bit.ly/foWmEb> [but without the test itself]. For the 1995 revision see Halloun et al. (1995).
Merseth, K. 1993. "How Old Is the Shepherd? An Essay About Mathematics Education," Phi Delta Kappan 74: 548-554; online at <http://bit.ly/1uk1dnP>.
Washbume, C. 2014a. "How Old Is the Shepherd? An Essay About Mathematics Education," online on the OPEN! Math-Teach archives at<http://bit.ly/1s5dUfU>. Post of 01 Nov 1:09 PM (the Math-Forum fails to specify the time zone) to Math-Teach.
Washbume, C. 2014b. "Who's to blame?" online on the OPEN! Math-Teach archives at <http://bit.ly/1wXhNI6>. Post of 19 Oct 3:13 PM (the Math-Forum fails to specify the time zone) to Math-Teach.