Peanuts by Charles Schulz for October 04, 2012

No wonder she’ll fail.

Sally is blond after all.

Relabelling something doesn’t help you understand it, it just confuses things.

They must be in the central time zone

Linus’s explanation is perfectly clear to a mathematical thinker. The problem is, most people are mathematally illerate, I.e. those who play the lottery expecting to win.

I shudder when I hear that some people’s majors were in math & statistics. I worked with a guy who actually liked doing calculus problems.

That distraction was perfect timing, Sally!

xxx

If you want to be expressive use New Math, if you want your answers to be correct, and, most importantly, understood, use old math.

She makes a good point. His instructions are a bit long.

Math is static – to try and make it “new” only makes it more difficult to learn…

Linus is explaining it well. New math was indeed set theory. And it was a disaster; horrible idea for elementary education.

A story from college. Day one of Calculus II. The professor walks into the class and first thing, draws a large 3 on the blackboard. Asks the class, “Can anyone tell me what this is?” Many people shout out “3”. I’m thinking, “Too obvious.” The professor says, “No, it’s a chalk scribble that is a representation of the concept of 3.” Very cool start to what was an excellent class.

The strip today brought back all those old anxieties of new math..

Charles Schulz, the prophet.

The answer is red.

Yup! My thing is languages, literature, poetry and like that. School was a nightmare. They could explain and show and show and explain, and I might understand it for a few minutes but the next day it was gone. The one day I “got” a lesson and finished the worksheet first (in 8th grade) the teacher accused me of cheating. How I could “cheat” and yet be the first to finish, she never explained. How can you “copy” or “cheat” when no one else has got it done?

I went to elementary school in the early 70s, never encountered ‘new math.’ Perhaps my district choose not to implement it. Until this story arc, I actually did not think there was really a ‘new math’, that it was just shomething made up on sit-coms for humor. I’ve always liked math, took every course I could in HS, perhaps I’ll check it out, sounds interesting.

How much is 2+2 in new math?

This was how it was helping my older son with his homework. He had A.D.D.

Math isn’t my thing either. : )

New Math