While growing up I often heard my elders bemoaning this “new @#$% math”, while trying to help my siblings and I with our homework.
What was old math, and what is/was the difference?
New math is probably anything that your elder didn’t learn in school. Depending on the age and national origin of your elder, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was anything beyond grade 8.
The math didn’t change; IIRC it was an educational reform movement in the 60’s that changed how math was taught.
The math didn’t change; IIRC New Math was an educational reform movement in the 60’s that changed how math was taught.
The old math was arithmetic, mostly: times tables, addition drills, long division, and problems to solve. Following the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite, U.S. politicians, education officials, and others panicked, screaming that American children must not be learning enough math, 'cause if we had enough engineers the Russkies’d never have beaten us into space. Soon, the mathematics curriculum in elementary schools was changed to include theoretical discussions of things taught by rote before, plus set theory, exponents, binary and other base systems, a little algebra, and more word problems (I assume some word problems were used in the “old math,” but not as many and not as soon). Parents, faced with concepts they had never learned, and problems they hadn’t dealt with before (and rusty with what they did know), were seriously PO’d with their inability to help with their children’s homework.
I think it was something to do with teaching math by using concepts from set theory, rather than by memorization and drilling.
Part of the problem was an emphasis on the concepts, not the results. An exageration would be the teacher would be happy if the student said 2 + 2 = 5, because that showed the student understood the “concept” of adition, if not the specifics. The parents would simply see that answer as wrong. Some people felt (and still do, I guess) that if you know the concept, you can figure out the answer eventually. Others felt it more important to know the answer, you will be able to figure out the concepts.
I kind of lean towards the “old math.” When I was teaching the fifth grade, the kids understood the concept of multiplication, but could not figure out how much they would be paid if they worked 5 .75 hours at $10.50 an hour. Absolutely, totally beyond them all. I got answers like $15, $10, $34 dollars, you name it. They simply didn’t have the discipline to wirte out the question carefully, or to keep their columns in line. They always were given passing grades for understanding that the problem required multiplication, for knowing what mulitplication was, for getting “close” but were never failed for not having the exact right answer. One kid, who I had thought was bright, simply could not bring himself to “bother” - his word - with the exact answer. When I asked him to say how much he would be paid if the made $11 and hour, and worked 20 hours, he came up with $44 as an answer! And he was pissed that I wanted him to get an exact answer. I told him that I could make two predictions about his future : somebody would always hire him, and that he would eventually starve to death.
Also see this Staff Report: What exactly was the “new math”?