“new Math” seems to have been a bizarre amalgam of algebra, set theory, different number systems, and general screwiness, that was popular in the public schools, in the 60’s-70’s period. I was a victim of it-in 7th grade, i was totally confused-every day was a differnet topic…it was a starnge mixture of stuff, intoduced and "taught’ by teachers barely qualified to read the stuff. Anyway, i struggled withthis stuff until high school-where they used a traditional algebra based text-and suddnely, it all made sense! Lately, i see evidence that the dreaded “new Math” is coming back! (I did a stint as a substitute teacher, and noticed the textbooks were incorporating a lot of this stuff back again (must be the textbook publishers needed to make money by issuing new editions). Any math teacher care to comment?
I’m not a teacher, but I was in elementary school between 1964 and 1969, and my parents have always said I was a victim of new math. I’m not sure about that; it was a long time ago, but I remember doing fine until I got to about third grade, and then was expected to do 10 pages of three and four digit multiplications a night. At least, that’s how I remember it though it was obviously a long time ago. Heck, maybe the math I got wasn’t “new” enough.
I was. It was horrid. I was mathmatically crippled until just the last decade or so. I freak out when I have to do more than basic rudiments. What a disaster.
Nope. My high school math teachers are at the age where they could have been, though. Maybe I’ll drop back in one day and ask them.
They brought it out while I was in public school in the 1960s. I understand about as much of it now as I did then. In Grade 8 we were doing fractions and decimals and short division, and the first day of Grade 9, three walls of blackboard were covered in algebraic notation. The teacher said, “Do this.” I had never seen it before. You’d think that with it being the only school board in the area, that they could have coordinated the program to prepare you for things you were going to need to know… [Belushi] But noooooooooo! [/Belushi].
What exactly is “New Math?”
I remember learning to work with different bases and doing a lot of Venn diagrams. If that’s New Math, then I must’ve come in on the tail end of it in the early to mid 70s. Didn’t seem to do me much harm. I had no problems with algebra or geometry. I probably could’ve done trigonometry and calculus if I didn’t hate them and thus lose any interest in doing them.
Agh, now I’m having flashbacks. I just remember circles and subsets and pretty colored cubes. And teachers squatting down beside my desk, saying “now, see how this is part of this and not part of that?”
What ANY of it had to do with RL math is still beyond me. I liked some algebra (loathed geometry and trig) in HS, but I place my dislike and reluctance re math as starting with that second grade nonsense. Base 6 -what’s if for?
I never realized I could blame it all on the Soviets. Cool!
I had new math. It had nothing to do with my mathematical skills; I had already been taught how not to add by traditional methods.
Speed tests. :eek:
tom Lehrer explains New Math:
http://www.com-www.com/musiclyrics/lehrertom-newmath.html
I was a “victim” of New Math. It seemed to confuse my parents more than me (they went to special night sessions, that were supposed to explain it al). To me it seemed to be a potentially confusing way to convey mathematical concepts. I think that I saw what they were trying to do, but did it the Old Math way anyway. It always seemed kind of a sideshow to me – Math is Math, and at its core remainedpretty much the same, even if you indulged in some weird trips and pyrotechnics to try and teach it.
My school had a good blend of traditional and new math concepts.
Being mathematically inclined, it really didn’t phase me that much.
The only concept that took me by surprise was the concept of numbers other than base-10 (my school loved base-5 for some reason). But it made introduction to binary math (somewhat useful in computing 
) a breeze later on.
Bwana Bob writes:
(italics mine)
This is either charmingly naive or deviously clever. I’m not sure which.
I wish it were “clever”, but alas no. I use the word “phase” to mean “bother” all the time.
I’m not trying to be snarky or anything, but I think the word you want is “faze”:
My God. You’ve possibly put a face on the reason I’ve sucked at and feared math all my life.
The “sets & subsets” things brought on a flashback the likes of which haven’t been seen since “Memento” was released. I was born in 1961, which put me in elementary school around what…1968/69/70? Aside from very basic math - I can balance a checkbook, do fractions, etc., math has terrorized me for years. (Yet I work in the mortgage biz - go figure).
Wow - I never connected “new math” and “bad math skills”. Interesting to ponder.
VCNJ~
You’re absolutely right - I’m half asleep this morning.
Thanks!
As I recall, 7th grade math was frustrating because there was something NEW every day! Monday it was Venn Diagrams (set theory) Wednesday, it was base 12 numbers. friday it was differentials. As i say, HS Algebra was a total revelation: the 1930’s style textbook was concise, defined everything, and had lots of solved problems-you could essentially educate yourself! From then on, I liked math.
My last teaching assignement looked like the textbook came straight out of “New” math-incomprhenesible examples, a bizarre mix of topics, and bad english to boot.
Personally, the older textbooks were a LOT better! Which leads to a side topic: selling textbooks is BIG money for publishers-yet algebrra hasn’t changed in what, 400 years? So why the proliferation of new editions?
No. I went to a Catholic elementary school where the Sisters of Mercy stayed with the mathematics teaching methods they had always used. When I did transfer to a public school for grade 6, I was astonished that my classmates were still struggling with things like multiplication, division, fractions, and decimals that the Sisters had covered by grade 4.
The Sisters were big on the concept of memorization, though. If a kid couldn’t understand the multiplication tables, he could still damned well memorize them.
I went through the UK equivalent (SMP maths) - set theory, number bases, etc - and, to this day, I can’t do arithmetic to save my life. I need a calculator to work out something like 23 + 18.
I was always good at algebra and calculus, surprisingly. Or perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the other responses so far.