Tom Leherer’s classic “New Math”:
Bo Burnham’s “New Math”—arguably (will I be struck by lightning for blasphemy?) funnier:
Old New Math and New New Math
June 5th, 2008 · 3 Comments
Tags: Art & Culture · Random Cool Link · Science
photos by Lara Shipley
© 2006–2007 Julian Sanchez — blog content
— photos by Lara Shipley — Sitemap — Cutline by Chris Pearson
3 responses so far ↓
1 Mike // Jun 5, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Tom Leherer’s movie is pretty funny but isn’t that how everyone does subtraction? Is there some secret, non-borrow-a-one way that my teachers didn’t share?
2 Pete // Jun 5, 2008 at 7:18 pm
The difference with the ‘New Math’ was the emphasis on theory over practice at an early age. Bases other then 10 and set theory was taught to primary students. That’s where the whole octal subtraction part comes from.
For the base 10 subtraction the difference was in how it was explained. There was a great deal of emphasis placed on the fact that 40 is ‘4 tens’ and ‘1 ten is 10 ones’. Rather then saying ‘you borrow one from the next column to give you twelve’.
3 Mike // Jun 5, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Ahh…ok…Seems like it might have been interesting, if done well. I always hated arithmetic. A little set theory might have done me well in elementary school.