In the video below, Tom Lehrer ‘explains’ and ‘criticizes’ the New Math curriculum in a funny way. I think the New Math curriculum was not that bad really. It helped the teachers to structure their math knowledge in a “mathematical” way. This is a good thing. The trouble was they taught mathematics in the mathematical way. Enjoy the video.
What is the New Math Curriculum?
New Mathematics or New Math was a brief, dramatic change in the way mathematics was taught in American grade schools, and to a lesser extent in European countries, during the 1960s. The name is commonly given to a set of teaching practices introduced in the U.S. shortly after the Sputnik crisis in order to boost science education and mathematical skill in the population so that the intellectual threat of Soviet engineers, reputedly highly skilled mathematicians, could be met.
New Math emphasized mathematical structure through abstract concepts like set theory and number bases other than 10. Beginning in the early 1960s the new educational doctrine was installed, not only in the USA, but all over the developed world.
Criticisms of the New Math Curriculum
Parents and teachers who opposed the New Math in the U.S. complained that the new curriculum was too far outside of students’ ordinary experience and was not worth taking time away from more traditional topics, such as arithmetic. The material also put new demands on teachers, many of whom were required to teach material they did not fully understand. Parents were concerned that they did not understand what their children were learning and could not help them with their studies. In the end it was concluded that the experiment was not working, and New Math fell out of favor before the end of the decade, though it continued to be taught for years thereafter in some school districts.
In the Algebra preface of his book “Precalculus Mathematics in a Nutshell,” Professor George F. Simmons wrote that the New Math produced students who had “heard of the commutative law, but did not know the multiplication table.”
— excerpts taken from Wikipedia
I learned New Math and it made math very enjoyable. Number Theory still fascinates me. Heck, in ’68 we were learning New New Math from the buy who invented New Math. It was amazing! We learned not only how things worked but why things worked.
The only problem was when we then moved to a new city where they taught math the old way and I was literally bored to tears, relearning in eighth grade what I had already learned in fourth grade and in summer school before third grade. Truly lousy algebra teachers taught me the steps, but not why we were doing them or when to choose which technique. I failed Algebra II before ever moving on to the advanced courses where they were teaching set theory and “function boxes” and matricies and axioms and other games I had enjoyed so much in elementary school.
Now I search for “New Math” and all anyone wants to talk about is that stupid Tom Lehrer song.