The New Math
There is a new emoticon making the rounds. That emoticon is “<3”, this, the emoticon is sometimes sincere and sometimes not which in my mind sort of defeats the point of using an emoticon (and I loathe using them anyway). My impression has always been that emoticons are used to clarify the meaning of text that might be misinterpreted, usually in the case of sarcasm or possibly to defuse a situation that might arise when words that are “just kidding”, or “JK” as the youngsters prefer, might be taken seriously. So now we have a type of communication invented with a specific purpose for the Internet age having said specific purpose undermined by a shift in usage. It figures, but all of that is beside the point I’m making today. The first time I saw the <3> brings back a very bad memory. It brings back the memory of my first academic failure.
Back in the mid 1970’s New York was in the depths of a financial crisis. The city was crumbling, both physically and psychologically. And I was still of single digit age grinding my way through childhood in a unique building for that time, a newly-built public school roughly four blocks from my house. Math had begun to be a challenge for me. I’m pretty sure it was the new math, not the old math or the old new math or the new new math.
So as part of this new math there we spend time learning about the greater than, less than, greater than or equal to and the less than or equal to symbols. Well, despite the fact the new math was supposed to encourage us to think as oppose to memorize processes (that was the idea right?) I was bored to tears and as a result I did what I do to this very day when bored: I zoned out. I didn’t think this was any big deal until it was time for the test.
Speaking of tests, test yourself right now to see if you were taught using the old math method or the new math method.
Question 1: What is the commutative property?
Question 2: What is 409 divided by 15? (do this in your head, no calculator, no paper and you can round to the nearest whole number).
If you spat out “changing the order of a set of numbers does not change their sum” to question 1 and could not complete question 2, you learned the new math. If you had no idea on question one and said “about 27” to question 2, you learned the old math. I’ll leave it to any Great Minds of Education reading this to decide which method yielded the more practical result. Me? I can do both, but only because my (ha!) career path for the last 19 years has required me to be able to do stuff like that in meetings, conference calls, etc and also because I like to save on ATM fees by picking up the check in restaurants using my credit card and then divvying up the bill to collect cash from my fellow diners. Clever, eh?
So the day of the great greater than/less than test came and I had no clue. For the life of me I couldn’t remember which way was which. So I did what any other red-blooded American kid who wasn’t brave enough or good enough of an actor to fake an illness would do. I faked it. Meaning, I guessed. Specifically, I alternated “<” and “>” as answers for the questions. My test taking skills had yet to evolve to the pinnacle they would reach in high school and college where I could get at least 80% of the questions on any multiple choice test right even if I had no clue as to the subject. That skill enabled me to get through college spending my non-working hours at the campus radio station or the bar for the most part; I just needed to show up enough times to have a basic idea of the course material and I could pull off at least a B- in most of them. The skill serves me well even today in those video trivia games they have in bars. Really, all you need to do in life to have people think you’re smart is know what the answer isn’t and have a serviceable vocabulary. Trust me, I’m an idiot and I’ve been faking people out for years.
However, back there in childhood the results were poor. My grade was dismal. I don’t remember exactly what it was but it was in the 50s (and for those of you used to letter grades, we were graded on a 1-100 scale with 100% meaning you got every thing right). I was crushed. I was devastated. Sure I didn’t get along with a lot of other kids and I wasn’t very good at baseball but school was the one thing that had never let me down. That was the one area where I was a winner, and now for the first time I was a loser, big time. Did I mention parent-teacher conferences were the following week? Oh yes, they were. And so it was that I sat in an empty classroom with my teacher reviewing that test with my mother. For some reason, there was a fish with its mouth agape drawn on the chalkboard. I stared hard at the fish from my seat, trying not to make eye contact with my mother or the teacher as they sat at the teacher’s desk talking. My mother’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t look angry. It slowly dawned on me. I was going to get away with it! I strained to hear what they were saying. I couldn’t hear every word, but the gist of it was that most of the class had failed the test! The teacher stood up and walked over by the fish, simultaneously calling me to the front of the room.
“Since so many children had trouble grasping the meaning of the symbols I asked the parents for some ideas. One of them suggested that you all think of the symbol as the mouth of a big fish. The fish always wants to eat the bigger number, not the smaller one. DC, would that help you remember the meaning?”
“I guess so” I lied. I wanted to get out of there before my mother changed her mind and got angry about the test.
“The other way to remember it is to think of the symbol as an arrow, and the arrow always points to the smaller number.”
Of course! “I think that one is better.” I said. The teacher nodded and approved. My mother smiled. The whole situation had turned around! Instead of getting berated for a poor test result, I was a golden boy for helping evolve educational theory! I wasn’t in trouble! In fact, I was a hero!
When we left the school the ice cream truck was up on the corner. My mom gave me a quarter and I bought a Bomb Pop, a red, white and blue ice pop in the shape of a bottle. They’re symmetrical now and come in different flavors but back then there was only one kind and it was in that distinctive bottle shape. It was the greatest performance bonus I ever received. Thanks mom.
Back in the mid 1970’s New York was in the depths of a financial crisis. The city was crumbling, both physically and psychologically. And I was still of single digit age grinding my way through childhood in a unique building for that time, a newly-built public school roughly four blocks from my house. Math had begun to be a challenge for me. I’m pretty sure it was the new math, not the old math or the old new math or the new new math.
So as part of this new math there we spend time learning about the greater than, less than, greater than or equal to and the less than or equal to symbols. Well, despite the fact the new math was supposed to encourage us to think as oppose to memorize processes (that was the idea right?) I was bored to tears and as a result I did what I do to this very day when bored: I zoned out. I didn’t think this was any big deal until it was time for the test.
Speaking of tests, test yourself right now to see if you were taught using the old math method or the new math method.
Question 1: What is the commutative property?
Question 2: What is 409 divided by 15? (do this in your head, no calculator, no paper and you can round to the nearest whole number).
If you spat out “changing the order of a set of numbers does not change their sum” to question 1 and could not complete question 2, you learned the new math. If you had no idea on question one and said “about 27” to question 2, you learned the old math. I’ll leave it to any Great Minds of Education reading this to decide which method yielded the more practical result. Me? I can do both, but only because my (ha!) career path for the last 19 years has required me to be able to do stuff like that in meetings, conference calls, etc and also because I like to save on ATM fees by picking up the check in restaurants using my credit card and then divvying up the bill to collect cash from my fellow diners. Clever, eh?
So the day of the great greater than/less than test came and I had no clue. For the life of me I couldn’t remember which way was which. So I did what any other red-blooded American kid who wasn’t brave enough or good enough of an actor to fake an illness would do. I faked it. Meaning, I guessed. Specifically, I alternated “<” and “>” as answers for the questions. My test taking skills had yet to evolve to the pinnacle they would reach in high school and college where I could get at least 80% of the questions on any multiple choice test right even if I had no clue as to the subject. That skill enabled me to get through college spending my non-working hours at the campus radio station or the bar for the most part; I just needed to show up enough times to have a basic idea of the course material and I could pull off at least a B- in most of them. The skill serves me well even today in those video trivia games they have in bars. Really, all you need to do in life to have people think you’re smart is know what the answer isn’t and have a serviceable vocabulary. Trust me, I’m an idiot and I’ve been faking people out for years.
However, back there in childhood the results were poor. My grade was dismal. I don’t remember exactly what it was but it was in the 50s (and for those of you used to letter grades, we were graded on a 1-100 scale with 100% meaning you got every thing right). I was crushed. I was devastated. Sure I didn’t get along with a lot of other kids and I wasn’t very good at baseball but school was the one thing that had never let me down. That was the one area where I was a winner, and now for the first time I was a loser, big time. Did I mention parent-teacher conferences were the following week? Oh yes, they were. And so it was that I sat in an empty classroom with my teacher reviewing that test with my mother. For some reason, there was a fish with its mouth agape drawn on the chalkboard. I stared hard at the fish from my seat, trying not to make eye contact with my mother or the teacher as they sat at the teacher’s desk talking. My mother’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t look angry. It slowly dawned on me. I was going to get away with it! I strained to hear what they were saying. I couldn’t hear every word, but the gist of it was that most of the class had failed the test! The teacher stood up and walked over by the fish, simultaneously calling me to the front of the room.
“Since so many children had trouble grasping the meaning of the symbols I asked the parents for some ideas. One of them suggested that you all think of the symbol as the mouth of a big fish. The fish always wants to eat the bigger number, not the smaller one. DC, would that help you remember the meaning?”
“I guess so” I lied. I wanted to get out of there before my mother changed her mind and got angry about the test.
“The other way to remember it is to think of the symbol as an arrow, and the arrow always points to the smaller number.”
Of course! “I think that one is better.” I said. The teacher nodded and approved. My mother smiled. The whole situation had turned around! Instead of getting berated for a poor test result, I was a golden boy for helping evolve educational theory! I wasn’t in trouble! In fact, I was a hero!
When we left the school the ice cream truck was up on the corner. My mom gave me a quarter and I bought a Bomb Pop, a red, white and blue ice pop in the shape of a bottle. They’re symmetrical now and come in different flavors but back then there was only one kind and it was in that distinctive bottle shape. It was the greatest performance bonus I ever received. Thanks mom.
Comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzVSXEu0bqI
Great writing.