This blog post reports a disturbing fact: some math education professors are urging future teachers to minimize the importance of correct answers because students may become too anxious.

In the class I just took, the professor one night espoused the ubiquitous ed school philosophy that one of the biggest hurdles to conquer in teaching math is students? math anxiety. He provided an example. … The problem could have many answers, a concept beloved by ed school types who believe that problems with only one correct answer limit students? critical thinking skills. ?Open-ended? problems with many answers, on the other hand, reduce math anxiety because it relieves the pressure to produce THE correct answer. Students are thus liberated to be creative and use ?higher order thinking skills?.

There is nothing new here. It just grinds my gears to read stuff like this.

Hat tip: Joanne Jacobs