"New Math"
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Frustrated by the way math is taught to my kids, I'm looking a little into math pedagogy and became interested in the "New Math" movement in the 1960s to early 1980s, whose hallmark was a greater emphasis on mathematical abstraction and less emphasis on "calculating".
Have any of you been involved in "New Math", either as a pupil or as a parent? What were/are your thoughts?
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I'm browsing through a series of textbooks from the time, ""Unified Modern Mathematics", which is conveniently available online. On one hand, I can see how this approach made parents mad, confused teachers, and led to "Johnny can't add" for many pupils. On the other hand, for the gifted kids this approach looks way superior to the way math is taught these days. I need to smile all the time when I read it, as opposed to the clenched fist when I read my kids' textbooks.
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So which approach or method do you want to use? I liked the more abstract math used while our kiddo was in school, but I also understand your point about the calculation component needing more emphasis.
Will you be teaching them at home? Could you do both the abstract and the basic math of calculations with them? Would they still love you?
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Most gifted kids will be fine with most reasonable methods. For mass schooling, use the method that can be widely understood by the average teachers and average students. Maybe use that “new math” stuff only in schools specializing in serving gifted kids.
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I remember being a product (no pun) of the new math.
I was in elementary school in the mid sixties being taught fields and matrices and functions.
At the time I didn’t think it was anything new until I asked some older relative who was in college if he knows about fields and seeing his face become astonished saying you don’t learn that in the sixth grade. That’s when I understood what we were learning was not the standard of what was taught earlier.
But I don’t think it turned me into a mathematician. All of the puzzles posted here remind me that I’m clueless as far as math concepts go.
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We were taught new math at high school, ages 11-16. It was my absolute favourite subject, and, with all due modesty, I was really good at it - top results in the school. I know, I know, hard to believe.
Then I went to 6th form college, ages 16-18, and everything kind of fell apart. Everybody else had studied traditional calculus, and we hadn't done any. I had two really tough years, but managed to get through, with ok to middling grades, and a huge hit to my self-confidence.
University was much the same.
I don't think learning about Sets and Groups and all the rest of it when I was 14 did me any good at all.
Proud supporter of Plan 2525. Everything you think, do and say will be in the pill you took today.
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@bachophile said in "New Math":
I remember being a product (no pun) of the new math.
I was in elementary school in the mid sixties being taught fields and matrices and functions.
At the time I didn’t think it was anything new until I asked some older relative who was in college if he knows about fields and seeing his face become astonished saying you don’t learn that in the sixth grade. That’s when I understood what we were learning was not the standard of what was taught earlier.
But I don’t think it turned me into a mathematician. All of the puzzles posted here remind me that I’m clueless as far as math concepts go.
Must be something they did in NYC. I was in elementary in the 60's as well and they did not teach that at all.
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@doctor-phibes said in "New Math":
I don't think learning about Sets and Groups and all the rest of it when I was 14 did me any good at all.
Hm, interesting.
I guess most people would agree that being able to perform basic arithmetic is a skill that is useful for life, even in the age of ubiquitous computing devices.
But when it comes to the kind of maths that is typically taught at ages 12-17 or so, it's not clear to me why calculus (derivations, integrals etc.) is more useful in most people's life than knowing about sets and groups.
In my opinion, unless you happen to have a profession in which a certain form of math is actually needed, the main point of math education "for life" is on a meta level: The ability to abstract, logical reasoning etc. That's why banks or consultant companies love to hire mathematicians. I'd guess that set theory, logic, abstract algebra, and probability theory do a better job at that than calculus.
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@klaus said in "New Math":
@doctor-phibes said in "New Math":
I don't think learning about Sets and Groups and all the rest of it when I was 14 did me any good at all.
Hm, interesting.
I guess most people would agree that being able to perform basic arithmetic is a skill that is useful for life, even in the age of ubiquitous computing devices.
But when it comes to the kind of maths that is typically taught at ages 12-17 or so, it's not clear to me why calculus (derivations, integrals etc.) is more useful in most people's life than knowing about sets and groups.
In my opinion, unless you happen to have a profession in which a certain form of math is actually needed, the main point of math education "for life" is on a meta level: The ability to abstract, logical reasoning etc. That's why banks or consultant companies love to hire mathematicians. I'd guess that set theory, logic, abstract algebra, and probability theory do a better job at that than calculus.
You could well be right - I guess the real issue for me was that I'd studied new math, and was then plunged into a traditional math class at age 17, and had to figure out what everybody else already knew by myself.
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