Maggie's Farm

But here in the USA, we have New! Improved! Education’s shiny toy syndrome.

That is a good way of putting it. Instead of focusing on what has worked in over 2,000 years of classroom instruction, Ed Schools concentrate on, as it put here, the new shiny toy that will reinvent everything, which must be universally applied even though there is not yet any documentary proof that it works.

I beg to differ on New Math. I did well in Math through 8th grade, getting a good grounding in basic arithmetic operations, but found math boring. In 9th grade I encountered New Math- University of Illinois style [UICSM]- which we called Illinois Math. My 9th grade math teacher, though a family friend and a Phi Beta Kappa math graduate, was a poor teacher. I taught myself 9th grade math using the book- the teacher was useless.

For the first time in my life, I enjoyed math. Even with a poor teacher, I enjoyed 9th grade math. While math was previously a boring series of rote operations, I got excited by seeing the underlying structures behind math. The emphasis on proofs from 9th grade on ignited my enthusiasm for math. Things were so no just because a teacher said they were so. One could prove it. I found it empowering to construct proofs.

New Math- or in my case Illinois Math- was not for everyone. Many -perhaps most- of my classmates were floored by the demanding proofs. After my junior year, a classmate who was 11th grade President, wrote "No more math misery" in my yearbook.

Decades later, I had a Geometry class with a professor whom I found out had met Max Beberman, the founding father of Illinois Math. My professor said that while many teachers who taught Illinois Math/New Math had abandoned trying to teach students basic arithmetic skills, Max Beberman said that had never been his intent.

New Math/Illinois Math in the hands of a skilled teacher like Max Beberman - or in the hands of the teacher I had for 10th and 12th grades- was a wonder. With less skilled teachers, not as good. Also bear in mind that Max Beberman developed UICSM not at Generic Junior/Senior High. but at the University of Illinois lab school. That is, he developed it using students who were much better than the Lake Wobegon "better than average."

There was something lost when New Math/Illinois Math was used by less capable teachers on less capable students. I also suspect that those who do not have a good knowledge of basic arithmetic operations, before they encountered New Math, had difficulty.