Peanuts by Charles Schulz for October 03, 2012

She’s watching “Old, Creepy Desperate Houswives.”

New math? Is old math in roman numerals?

I think “new math” came out in the sixties. I’ve only ever known new math.

Tom Lehrer pretty much sums it up with his song “New Math”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfCJgC2zezw

I thank my Dad for helping me finally understand how to do long division the old Math way.

She probably ends up being a chemist or an engineer or something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXx2VVSWDMo – New Math, by Tom Lehrer

Now days the education system doesn’t teach math (new or old). To hard for our coddled kids!

What was taught under new Math, which seemed to revolve a lot around set theory, was useless in the way it was taught in isolation. Though the concepts are useful in advanced college level math the concepts of set theory taught in isolation in elementary school are really lost…

You’d think that Sally would welcome the chance to be with Linus.

Looking at this strip from decades away, I marvel now at the subversive level of consciousness raising Shulz accomplished and wonder just how intentional it was.

Maths? Boooooooooooo!

LOL xxx

I never understood new math when I was a kid and neither did my teachers. As an adult, I figured it out for myself, it was no big deal—but entirely useless. The best tutorial is on Youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wHDn8LDks8

I find it sad that so many people apparently think teaching abstract thought is a “disaster”. Sure, most kids won’t end up applying it in real life — but then, most people end up as laborers in life. I’d like to think that some of the kids who are exposed to more than basic arithmetic end up being inspired to be more than they otherwise would have ended up being. And isn’t that what education is all about?

The Wikipedia article gives a good, concise summary — it even refers to this series of “Peanuts” strips. :) The sixties weren’t all fun and hippies, young’uns….

@Cookies333

If we listed all of the disadvantages of being an adult. We would get writer’s cramp!

So… Let’s just say there are a LOT of disadvantages of adulthood.

It’s funnier when you hear Tom Lehrer sing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wHDn8LDks8

Sally will probably change her mind one day. She’ll need that new math in order to get into a good college. She should enjoy being next to her “Sweet Babboo.”

;)

I think he was trying to demonstrate what this “new math” was like. I didn’t read clear through it, but it made me glad I didn’t have to try to wrap my head around that kind of stuff when I went to school.

Sally doesn’t have to be a housewife – I think that was the point of the cartoon before everyone got off track about “new math”. And yes, I was a guinea pig with the new math. My mother had been a bookkeeper. My dad knew numbers and how to make a profit. She threw her hands up when new math came into play. He was a marine electronics repairman (can’t see the electricity or radio waves but have to understand it). He could explain it in a way I could understand it. Years later in college I had 5 classes of calculus. Never understood what I was studying this quarter. But when I moved to the next class everything made sense from the last class. It is all in how it is taught and the context. Currently, I am a CPA. In interviewing people for positions (Bookkeeper, accountant, etc) we have an extremely hard time finding anyone that can add, subtract, multiple, and divide without a calculator. We give a basic math test with 60 problems (one line – not word problems). It has become increasing rare that anyone can answer more that 15 accurately in the 5 minutes given for the test. We look for accuracy first then speed.