I
can still see those pretty powder blue textbooks, even though 7th
grade was 57 years ago. The 8th grade textbooks were a pretty shade
of apricot orange. It’s ironic that I remember those New Math textbooks, seeing
as how I don’t remember much about the course content. And I certainly don't remember the covers of any other textbooks.
Back
in the 1950s, the U.S. government became concerned – no, make that panicked – that
our school curriculum was not sufficient to develop the engineers and
scientists needed to compete with the Russians. Something had to be done, and
that something was New Math. The plan was to begin teaching New Math to first
graders and then follow with the subsequent grades until eventually the arithmetic
curriculum was entirely converted.
As
an elementary school student, I liked the old arithmetic and was pretty good at
it. Arithmetic was so solid, so dependable. You just learned the values of your
digits and then began to use them in processes. But there was a lot of talk
about this New Math and how it would revolutionize us. I heaved a mental sigh of relief that this new curriculum wouldn’t
involve me. But – I was wrong!
As
my school district began
teaching New Math to first graders, they also made up a class of “advanced”
math students at junior high, just as I was entering 7th grade. As I
said, I was pretty good in math, and I tested into that class. So, here I was –
proud to have made the cut and also feeling out of my element. The whole curriculum
was highly experimental, but at the junior high level, I think it was an
experiment to see if students coming from traditional teaching could grasp
these new concepts.
I
can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, the abstract concepts were foreign. I remember
something about sets and sub-sets, and something about different base systems –
the binary system, for instance. If you had a base six system, how would you
add? I saw no application for that. I was quietly frustrated – and sometimes
not so quietly. It was as if something I liked had suddenly become “a horse of
a different color,” as it were. At home the principle of doing well was
reinforced, so with considerable effort I struggled to do well, but underneath,
my confidence in my math skills was broken. We were told that New Math would
make algebra easier, but I don’t think it did for me. I still feel that my math
education was interrupted by those two years of New Math.
I
googled “New Math,” and several interesting articles came up if you care to pursue
more info on this subject and the educational climate of that day. KW
3 comments:
It's amazing that you remember the colors of the books! I have no remembrance of the book covers. We were guinea pigs, that's for certain. I told you my story in an email, and I still like it when a problem presents itself and I realize that by using my algebra skills I can solve it.
I thought the book covers were appealing, and that was probably part of the psychology of the presentation.
Think of the math and geometry skills used by quilters! Well, sewing in general involves math, algebra, geometry. I've been flirting with the idea of enlarging and reducing doll patterns. I'm probably more interested in applications today than I was as a schoolgirl.
I think New Math was seen as a failure almost immediately. As I recall, when we went on to 9th grade algebra, we weren't placed in the same class, so they weren't following us for group results. They just abandoned the whole program. What does it say about education -- that you can take a kid and mess with her for two years and then say, "Oh well?" Were those two years not important?
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