Reply to Elements of Mathematics / IMACS unique, hyper-accelerated, New Math, pure math curriculum for grades 5-9

Forum Index » Schools and Education General Discussion

Reply to "Elements of Mathematics / IMACS unique, hyper-accelerated, New Math, pure math curriculum for grades 5-9"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I haven't heard of this, but I just want to put it out there that there is a reason "new math" was controversial. All that "boring" stuff (boring in quotes because it's not boring if it's taught well) is important and trying to skip out on it is one of the reasons the US has done so poorly on it compared to other countries, particularly when it comes to numeracy. The "new math" generation is the lost generation of mathematics. This sort of reminds me of Lucy Calkins.

Of course, if a kid is super-mathy then I'm sure it's fine and it definitely sounds fun. [/quote]

I think societal dysfunction is a larger problem for math education than New Math curriculum, which got nowhere near universal adoption in USA.
Also USA has deflated "average" performance metrics because we have universal college-prep education.

But I agree that the New Math works mainly for gifted kids (the ones who we needed in the Space Race) who can handle abstraction and don't need to be force-drilled basic school math in order to achieve competence.

New Math isn't a fit for early elementary grades. But on the flip side, drilling works OK for times tables and basic algebra, but most people who learn regular school math don't remember anything past basic algebra, even if they cram and pass clases through calculus. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics