Re: [Phys-l] Old News That Stays News

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@hep.anl.gov>]

Hi all-
	It's important to check and make sure that they're really doing 
what they claim to be doing.  Concepts first?  Right on!  Straight out of 
Arons.
	BUT, what they're really doing is teaching vocabulary - not 
concepts.  Arons said it right.  Concept BEFORE name.

We can easily grasp, from examples, that 5x39 is the same as 39'x5,  We've 
added nothing to the kid's math proficiency by teaching her the word
"commutativity".  That was the problem with the new math of the '60's 
(when I made my kids do old math in workbooks).  Names like "set", 
"union", "intersection", were taught in a context when the kids are not 
going to be applying set theory.  This was the math education of the parents who are 
presently unable to assist their kids with today's homework.

	The discussion of cool ways to calculate 5x88 misses the point, I 
think, because it is really emphasising that there are clever ways to 
handle special cases.  I believe that a sense of numeracy comes from 
understanding methods that are applicable to every case.  A good sense of 
such methods is also helpful when learning to manipulate algebraic symbols 
- but that is another rant.
				Regards,
					Jack


On Sun, 20 Jul 2008, chuck britton wrote:

> 'New Math' came along shortly after the Sputnick wake-up call.
>
> 	My sister in the second grade was using the same words that I was
> being introduced to in NSF summer math institutes.
>
> 		i.e. associative, distributive and commutative properties
>
>
> I could have handled those concepts in the second grade - but they
> would just be a fun add-on to the rote work.
>
> It was in the second grade that I finished up a one and two digit
> exercise in addition and decided to go back and repeat the problems
> with subtraction instead of addition.
> This was just to fend off boredom.
>
> When I came to the somewhat unexpected 'problem' of subtracting seven
> from four - I just made up a new notation - the answer is clearly
> 'three in-the-hole' so I wrote down the three and drew a circle
> around it to signify 'in-the-hole'.
>
> I had written down the 'correct' addition answers so the teacher
> wasn't bothered too much with the extra scribbling.
>
>
>
> On Jul 20, 2008, at Jul 20(Sun) 1:03 , John Denker wrote:
>
> > Here's something you don't see every day:  An informative, non-
> > polemical,
> > non-hysterical news article about new math ± old math.
> >
> >     http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/07/18/
> > renegade.math.parents.ap/index.html
> >
> > >  Story Highlights
> > >  # Parents sometimes struggle with kids' concept-based math curricula
> > >  # Method teach the ideas behind mathematics, rather than rote
> > > procedures
> > >  # Parents don't understand the new methods; can't help with homework
> > >  # Rebel parents teach kids the old -fashioned math methods
> > _______________________________________________
> > Forum for Physics Educators
> > Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
> > https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> Forum for Physics Educators
> Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
> https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l

--
"Trust me.  I have a lot of experience at this."
		General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
		just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley