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Whatever Happened to New Math? (1990)

americanheritage.com

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Re: Whatever Happened to New Math? (1990)

#21

Post by tasogare »

qz2 wrote: post #15
WalterBright wrote: post #7

Fashions, programs, rhetoric, task forces, agendas, etc., come and go in the public schools. The only constant is no change in results. It's actually kinda funny. There's an endless search for an effortless way to learn math. There is no such thing. Learning math requires work. Just like there is no way to get strong without hard work.

Yep. Had exactly that experience this week. They're trying to teach my youngest how to subtract with carry. Now I taught her the column method about a year ago but she's not allowed to use that suddenly due to a new idea they have. Not a single one of the children understood it so the teacher went back to column method a couple of days later having pissed the time on that attempt out of the window. This sort of stuff…

I had a talk about that with a relative (soon to be retired teacher, got a decoration for his job). His point of view was that teachers should be viewed as technicians: they are here a apply a method, not to invent new ones.

This doesn’t need to be robotic, it still give a lot of room for personalization. I find he’s really right, especially since in my country everyone want to do their own stuff in their own way. The ministry is guilty as well, because it produces an endless stream of contradictory directives, each based on theories made by pedagogists that never taught in the field.

Re: Whatever Happened to New Math? (1990)

#22

Post by thrower123 »

The biggest problem seems to be that they spend a helluva lot of time on math instruction, but not very much time actually doing the math.

For anything through AP calculus, you'd be better served going down the volume and spaced repetition route that math programs like Saxon use. Do things over, and over, and over, and over again until they are second nature. There's no magic bullet to get around that work that you have to do to master something.

Re: Whatever Happened to New Math? (1990)

#23

Post by mathgenius »

My grade two teacher demonstrated "venn diagrams" one day, it absolutely blew my mind. She had a bunch of coloured shapes scattered on the floor, then put one hoop over the triangles, another hoop over the red shapes, and then, what to do with the red triangles? My six-year-old brain loved it when she put one hoop overlapping the other one. And yet to this day I refuse to memorize the multiplication table.

Rote learning is easier for the teacher: easier to teach, easier to mark. It's not just mathematics, it's all the subjects in school. Many of the "geniuses" merely survive school, nothing more.

Re: Whatever Happened to New Math? (1990)

#24

Post by mkoubaa »

rlvesco7 wrote: post #14

Within home schooling communities, Singaporean style math has quite a following. Singapore also tends to score quite high on international exams. Basically, they focus on fewer topic more deeply. They also teach from concrete to abstract. I wish American schools would adopt this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_math

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” -Bruce Lee

Re: Whatever Happened to New Math? (1990)

#25

Post by hluska »

WalterBright wrote: post #12
harimau777 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may very well be correct; however, I can see some other possibilities: - The scores don't effectively measure learning. - The need to prepare students for tests undermines the ability to try different teaching approaches. - Scores don't change overall but the distribution of scores change. - The distribution of scores don't change but the demographics of the students in a given part of the distribution change. -…

I don't understand how someone can learn math, yet be unable to solve math problems on a test. In my 16 years of education, I saw a consistent 1:1 correlation with learning the material and doing correspondingly well on the tests. That consistency included myself - when I learned the material, I'd ace the test. When I didn't learn it, I failed the test. There wasn't any magical "learned but didn't test well" going on…

You’re speaking only of yourself and while you should be very happy you don’t suffer from any of a multitude of disorders, it’s highly classist and disrespectful to assume that nobody else else.

Consider anxiety disorders. There’s a crystal clear, fully scientifically proven reason that some can know the material but fail to perform on a test. Think more. It helps.

Re: Whatever Happened to New Math? (1990)

#26

Post by hluska »

This is controversial (and shouldn’t be) but what if instead of spending so much time wondering why ‘Johnny’ can’t add, we spent that money and effort on making sure that Johnny was fed properly??

Countries with as much child poverty as Canada and the United States shouldn’t be surprised when their testing results don’t improve. This is pretty fucking basic science yet I’ve been fighting this battle for over twenty years and quite literally nobody in power gives enough of a fuck to fix it.

Re: Whatever Happened to New Math? (1990)

#27

Post by soVeryTired »

mathgenius wrote: post #23

My grade two teacher demonstrated "venn diagrams" one day, it absolutely blew my mind. She had a bunch of coloured shapes scattered on the floor, then put one hoop over the triangles, another hoop over the red shapes, and then, what to do with the red triangles? My six-year-old brain loved it when she put one hoop overlapping the other one. And yet to this day I refuse to memorize the multiplication table. Rote learn…

I found myself thinking about multiplication tables in the shower today. I think you can get away with knowing the tables for 2, 3, and 7 really well. The rest is just tricks:

4: 2x twice

5: add a zero and divide by 2

6: a 3x followed by a 2x

8: 2x three times

9: 3x twice

Beyond that, it’s repetition of those tricks, plus the distributive property of multiplication over addition.

Re: Whatever Happened to New Math? (1990)

#28

Post by jmt_ »

hluska wrote: post #26

This is controversial (and shouldn’t be) but what if instead of spending so much time wondering why ‘Johnny’ can’t add, we spent that money and effort on making sure that Johnny was fed properly?? Countries with as much child poverty as Canada and the United States shouldn’t be surprised when their testing results don’t improve. This is pretty fucking basic science yet I’ve been fighting this battle for over twenty y…

This reminds me of Maslow's pyramid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

If a child is struggling at the basic needs level of this pyramid then hitting the self fulfillment bit at the top is excruciatingly difficult

Re: Whatever Happened to New Math? (1990)

#29

Post by buzzy_hacker »

hluska wrote: post #26

This is controversial (and shouldn’t be) but what if instead of spending so much time wondering why ‘Johnny’ can’t add, we spent that money and effort on making sure that Johnny was fed properly?? Countries with as much child poverty as Canada and the United States shouldn’t be surprised when their testing results don’t improve. This is pretty fucking basic science yet I’ve been fighting this battle for over twenty y…

There’s hope yet: “The reduction in child poverty would be larger still, from 13.7 percent to 3.6 percent. Only about a quarter as many children would remain in poverty after the policy package’s adoption.”

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21456242/joe-biden-povert...

Re: Whatever Happened to New Math? (1990)

#30

Post by MaxBarraclough »

cyxxon wrote: post #6
kencausey wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like if you only load the HTML then use Reader mode that it does OK. I use μMatrix and have it only load HTML for sites where I have not explicitly allowed additional content.

Firefox native Reader mode works great here (although I have uBlock installed, not sure how much annoyances it filters out).

Doesn't work for me. Firefox Reader Mode just shows the first page. (I have uBlock Origin installed, but I suspect it doesn't matter.) red_admiral's suggestion worked for me though.
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