I've always thought about the "New Math" movement, especially in the States. At first I thought it was kind of comical since it's just a response to the soviets. How the Bourbaki style of mathematics helps with defeating the soviets beats me. I've heard the soviets used similar mathematics, but perhaps not in the way the US implemented it. The article mentioned how Morris Kline was against it. I remember reading how Richard Feynman was against it as well. I do believe, however, that some set theory should be seen before university. Just basic stuff like union, intersection, etc. Set theory is the foundation of math, and how we made everything in math be a set is remarkable to me. Especially since it's consistent! Whether "New Math" failed completely is hard to tell. There are mathematicians that came out of that era (i.e. Arturo Magidin on stackexchange comes to mind). But the question would be did they become mathematicians because of "New Math" or in spite of it?
The third thing I wanted to address was how "those who like mathematics are [...] eggheads, nerds, [...], unable to cope with the world of human interactions [...]." I've actually experienced this myself, from my own colleagues. Since this is still a common conception, when I first started my degree, a lot of people told me that I had to be or become weird if I studied math. I also experienced a lot of pushback in university from either professors or my classmates, and being seen as not one of them. What I mean is, I like being a well rounded person and I like physical activity. Physical activity was mostly shunned by my colleagues. It wasn't from everyone but it was there.
Hi Marius,
ReplyDeleteYou've made some interesting points in your discussion post to Battleground Schools that I completely agree with. I thought the section on the "New Math" movement was hilarious with how the US wanted to respond to the Soviets launching of the Sputnik in hopes of "creating future mathematicians" to work in labs for NASA. I also agree that basic set theory should be taught or introduced into classrooms prior to university. I feel that as a student, I did understand some ideas of union and intersections however did not explicitly made those connections. Do you think there are ways we can do that in the classroom? Lastly, I also wanted to acknowledge the quote at the end with how mathematicians are "unable to cope with world of human interactions." I have definitely received compliments from people hearing that I am studying math and think we as teachers should work at eliminating that stigma with mathematics being a difficult subject. What ways can you think of achieving this?
Yeah, I think you can do it with simple circles and dots as the elements. It should be very easy to understand union and intersection. The second question is very hard to answer. I think in terms of our students it's how we present ourselves since the students will look to ourselves first for inspiration.
ReplyDeleteYes I agree. As educators, we should be as inspiring as possible to students rather than discouraging them when learning mathematics. One phrase I have heard many times from teachers is something like, "you won't need to know this beyond this class, I just have to teach it to you for the sake of teaching the curriculum."
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