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What is this, the New New Math? I still remember "new math". It was ridiculous. There was some really complicated method they wanted you to follow to do long division. I never learned how to do it. In fact my dad, a mechanical engineer, a guy who went to Purdue in the late 30's on a full-ride academic scholarship, couldn't figure out why they wanted to do it that way.
We are talking about a guy who, when I asked him for math help, would get really excited and start going into the proofs behind say ... addition.
He took one look at it, pronounced it ridiculously complicated, and showed me how to do it the FAST and EASY way.
The very first time I did it that way, I got it marked wrong for using the "wrong" method, even though the answer was correct.
So from then on I just did it MY way anyway, very lightly in pencil, then erased the actual calculations and drew a picture of the result had I done it THEIR way.
Dumbest thing I ever ran across in school, among many dumb things.
Are there any teachers here who know what the purpose was of introducing that "New Math"? What was wrong with good old-fashioned math? New Math turned a lot of kids off from math, which had later repercussions in algebra and trig classes. The greater part of a generation or two struggled with those, imo.
This is just another iteration on the new Math that started in the late 60's.
The move is away from computational skills to concepts, theories and modeling.
It's just another movement with the same promises that all the other Math movements failed to achieve.
CC is focusing more on concepts and bringing abstraction to the K-5 level to better prepare students for algebra.
CC emphasizes more verbal and written understanding of mathematical concepts.
Computation skills are secondary in some cases and totally absent in others where they just want students to write a paragraph on the problem.
Instead of teaching "how" to subtract the student writes a paragraph on "why" to subtract.
Are there any teachers here who know what the purpose was of introducing that "New Math"? What was wrong with good old-fashioned math? New Math turned a lot of kids off from math, which had later repercussions in algebra and trig classes. The greater part of a generation or two struggled with those, imo.
There's been so much talk about the ridiculous results of New Math - ad so much evidence that it does way more harm than good.
Anyone has any idea why the educational system keeps insisting on it?
New Math was in response to the fears that Russia was going to overtake us in the sciences, after Sputnik was launched. It was supposed to make children more mathematically inclined so that higher math such as algebra and calculus would be more easily learned later.
One major flaw was that the teachers who were expected to teach it didn't understand it AT ALL. They were generally slaving away in lockstep with various workbooks, and depended solely on the master answer sheet to tell if a kid was Doin' It Right or Doin' It Wrong.
Also, looking back on it now from the standpoint of someone who did eventually get fairly advanced math training in college, it sure doesn't look terribly useful to me to achieve that or any other goal. As far as I can remember, it only lasted 1 year in my local school. Either that or I ignored it so completely after the first go-round that I've forgotten it.
I got curious and went and looked up the division-methodology thing that ticked my Dad and me off so much. Apparently what he taught me is termed "double-division" - I have no idea why. There's no doubling about it. But basically you do your division down the side instead of trying to do it across the top. Doing it across the top pretty much depends on getting the correct digit in any particular units position the first time, else you quickly end up with a real mess up there. Doing it down the side lets you correct for wrong guesses as you go, adding it all up at the end.
Either they stopped teaching it that way eventually or I just ran out of teachers who cared how I got the right answer, as long as I got the right answer, because after a couple of years, nobody gave me any grief about it any more. That I can recall, at least.
New Math was a response to the Sputnik crisis. There was a perception, by some in this country, that the Soviets had superior skills. It was an attempt to teach better mathematical skills.
My experience was similar to Sojj's. My elementary school tried to implement it. I, like many of the students in my school, had a parent working in the American space program. Engineers. Designers. Real-life rocket scientists. The rocket scientists were going to PTA meetings yelling (literally) "It's unnecessary and too complicated. I can't help my child with their homework." It was a miserable failure.
We had a saying later on: "I am a victim of New Math."
Instead of teaching "how" to subtract the student writes a paragraph on "why" to subtract.
But for Pete's sake, these are two different things. One doesn't exclude the other. In fact, the former is a requisite for the latter.
If you ask me to calculate 324-211...there is no reason for me to tell you WHY I subtracted 211 from 324. Because you asked me to!
But if you'd asked the child how much money a shopper is left with after she spent 211 dollars on a pair of shoes from the total of 324 dollars she came with at the store...then the child should also be expected to explain why he subtracted 211 from 324.
That's all.
Geez..why do things need to be more complicated than they actually are?
Did they first check with Russia to see if they were using this crap pedagogy? 'Cause they weren't.
It was during the Cold War. The only checking America was doing was to see if Khrushchev was moving missiles around.
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