Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott for March 05, 2024

In some ways, geometry is harder.

13-7= a nine step process. common core.

I’m assuming they’re teaching the kids Common Core math. Why did the educrats take something that was so simple and spin it into something that was so complicated?

he grew up with sets and worse.

deja vu

Poor him.

Speaking as a former mathematician, when first learning, rote memorization is by far the easiest and most effective way to learn math. When you get to mid-level math (algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus), learning how to PROVE that’s the right answer becomes important. But if you want a career in mathematics, the most critical facility is the ability to imagine ways of doing math that no one else has ever thought of. The really hard questions can’t be answered by using “tried and true” methods; they require a leap of the imagination, and if someone is taught, right from the start, that they always have to do things the “right” way, they will never truly master the topic. But of course those writing the “new math” textbooks are not brilliant mathematicians, or even competent instructors; so they don’t realize what a dis-service they are doing all students, not just the beginners, but even the ones who might otherwise learn how to do things the “wrong” way, and STILL get the right answer.

I’m old enough to have been in elementary school when New Math hit the scene. Elementary school teachers trying to teach set theory to 5th graders. Pointless.

This “New Math” makes it more difficult trying to get one answer. It’s ridiculous!

I was pretty good at math until “New Math” was introduced. It screwed me up for a while until I entered economics classes and was introduced to basic formulas with real world applications. That I understood.

I see much salt in the comments today!

Devo Spice did a cover of Tom Lehrer’s’ song New Math that updates the math

I thought modern math didn’t have numbers? My math (half a century gone) was all numbers up to High School.

i remember when the “New Math” came out. Totally different way of adding 2+2 to get 4. Helped my oldest daughter work through several problems. The next day she came home madder’n a wet hen and showed me the big red ‘F’ on the homework page. I told her I’d talk to the teacher. The teacher tried to tell me she got the ‘F’; because my daughter didn’t work the problems the way they were supposed to be worked. i asked the teacher if the answers were all correct to which she replied “yes”. I then said, what difference does it make how the problem is solved if the answer is right. Real world problems aren’t always solved 1-2-3 or A-B-C. The ‘F’ was immediately changed to an ‘A’ which made my daughter very happy adn I was forgiven.

Dad should be more solve-serving.

In the third grade I had a mental block about the word “times”. What does times mean? Eventually I figured out that it means occurrences. So 6 times 5 means six fives added together.

Because it’s 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! https://www.youtube.Com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA

Was it just variables instead? y=mx+b, perhaps?

It certainly has changed.

Look….all I remember is A + B = C

Roman numerals.