Posted on 01/06/2005 5:38:05 PM PST by Chuckmorse
I was visiting my brother the other day and his 9-year-old son was doing his math homework.
I took a look at the Math problems and realized that they were almost impossible to de-cipher.
My sister in law explained to me that the goal was to learn how to guess.
A few days earlier, I was attending a discussion with other parents whose children attend the school my daughter attends.
The subject of Math came up and they nodded their heads in agreement when someone made the point that the Math homework given to their children was virtually intelligible.
One parent explained that the school had a "theoretical" orientation when it came to Math and that rote learning, as opposed to abstract understanding, was unfashionable.
Arithmetic, the ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, is, in and of itself, a way of thinking and organizing.
Numbers themselves are abstract expressions of matter and a means of measuring quantity and time.
By tampering with this most fundamental science, our education system is tampering with our children's ability to think clearly.
No wonder there is such an increase in dyslexia, ADD, and other learning disorders.
How much actual Math is taught in schools today?
What effect does the "new” Math have on the cognitive and intellectual development of our children?
I would be curious to hear feedback on this important issue.
Get out of the government schools before it is too late.
Ok.... "2+2 = 7 .....because 7 is a pretty number and it makes me feel good to say it" sort of math?
I fail to see how one can have a "theoretical" understanding of mathematics without actually being able to do the mathematics.
Your brother best get his son into another school, or he's likely to need remediation later on.
ping
You do know there's three kinds of people in the world....those who can count, and those who can't.
(sorry)
New Math = not!
You ever watch young adults today try to add and subtract today. They can't do it without a calculator. Go into a store or gas station. When the cash register doesn't work they have to close down because they just don't know how to do the math. Look at the math scores of our children today compared to those around the world. They don't measure up. New math isn't any good if they can't do the calculations on a piece of paper or in their head when they don't have a calculator. Another example of schools not doing the job of educating kids properly. It's a waste of the taxpayers' money.
Creative bookkeeping? The IRS will eventually send all these kids to jail!
Maybe somebody can dig up the lyics from the Tom Lehrer song of the same name..it's a hoot..
Some of you who have small children may have perhaps been put in the embarrassing position of being unable to do your child's arithmetic homework because of the current revolution in mathematics teaching known as the New Math. So as a public service here tonight I thought I would offer a brief lesson in the New Math. Tonight we're going to cover subtraction. This is the first room I've worked for a while that didn't have a blackboard so we will have to make due with more primitive visual aids, as they say in the "ed biz."
Consider the following subtraction problem, which I will put up here: 342 - 173.
Now remember how we used to do that. three from two is nine; carry the one, and if you're under 35 or went to a private school you say seven from three is six, but if you're over 35 and went to a public school you say eight from four is
six; carry the one so we have 169, but in the new approach, as you know, the important thing is to understand what you're doing rather than to get the right answer. Here's how they do it now.
You can't take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the tens place.
Now that's really four tens,
So you make it three tens,
Regroup, and you change a ten to ten ones,
And you add them to the two and get twelve,
And you take away three, that's nine.
Is that clear?
Now instead of four in the tens place
You've got three,
'Cause you added one,
That is to say, ten, to the two,
But you can't take seven from three,
So you look in the hundreds place.
From the three you then use one
To make ten ones...
(And you know why four plus minus one
Plus ten is fourteen minus one?
'Cause addition is commutative, right.)
And so you have thirteen tens,
And you take away seven,
And that leaves five...
Well, six actually.
But the idea is the important thing.
Now go back to the hundreds place,
And you're left with two.
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves...?
Everybody get one?
Not bad for the first day!
Hooray for new math,
New-hoo-hoo-math,
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
It's so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!
Now that actually is not the answer that I had in mind, because the book that I
got this problem out of wants you to do it in base eight. But don't panic. Base
eight is just like base ten really - if you're missing two fingers. Shall we
have a go at it? Hang on.
You can't take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the eights place.
Now that's really four eights,
So you make it three eights,
Regroup, and you change an eight to eight ones,
And you add them to the two,
and you get one-two base eight,
Which is ten base ten,
And you take away three, that's seven.
Now instead of four in the eights place
You've got three,
'Cause you added one,
That is to say, eight, to the two,
But you can't take seven from three,
So you look at the sixty-fours.
"Sixty-four? How did sixty-four get into it?" I hear you cry.
Well, sixty-four is eight squared, don't you see?
(Well, you ask a silly question, and you get a silly answer.)
From the three you then use one
To make eight ones,
And you add those ones to the three,
And you get one-three base eight,
Or, in other words,
In base ten you have eleven,
And you take away seven,
And seven from eleven is four.
Now go back to the sixty-fours,
And you're left with two,
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves...?
Now, let's not always see the same hands.
One, that's right!
Whoever got one can stay after the show and clean the erasers.
Hooray for new math,
New-hoo-hoo-math,
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
It's so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!
Come back tomorrow night. We're gonna do fractions.
Now I've often thought I'd like to write a mathematics text book someday because I have a title that I know will sell a million copies. I'm gonna call it Tropic Of Calculus.
Heh, you know what they say about great minds...
In Texas the goal is get the kids to do well on the standardized tests by which teachers and principals are evaluated.
A good guesser can do substantially better on these math tests than someone who tries to calculate the exact answer. (all other thing equal)
Cart before the horse. Theoretical is fine but a good grounding in the basics is necessary first.
Guessing or approximate answers are something that you should learn and they are very useful later in life. I work with numbers for a living. I can scan large amounts of data and know when something is off. When it is I go in for a closer look. I usually don't know exactly by how much it is off until I do the calculations but I recognize that it isn't right.
However as I said before that is something that you should only begin learning after you have a good grasp on the basics. If your nephew has already learned the basics then it is ok if he is learning approximate math. If he does not then it is not ok.
That was painful to read.
During the holidays I was invited to some friends' home. Their 9 yr old son was doing his math homework in the kitchen. Multiplication. He was totally lost. When he tried to explain to me "how " he was to figure these problems out...I was lost.
So together he and I made up some homemade "flash cards". It was fun practicing with him for a little while. He began to understand and get some right.
I really felt sorry for him, cause he was getting set up by his govt school. I went to public school for years..we never had this kind of crap they are passing off as learning. They think they are using such creative ( and when used in the right setting,very effective) methods as Montessori...funny thing, the teachers or schools have no idea of what works, when and how.
Nope, my children are deeply saddened that they are required to know the real answers in their schools.
Wow! A school without calculus!
If only I'd known 16 years ago when I was still in school.
Damn! Now I'm stuck with an education.
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