Learning the new math way
Broadcast Date: Jan. 10, 1965
"Who knows the secret?" the teacher asks. Every hand in the room shoots up and the students strain in their seats to answer. They're responding to a new way of teaching math, and it's a far cry from the rote drills of their parents' math classes. For these nine-year olds, math class means puzzles and games and a turn at the overhead projector. But while the kids seem to get it, their parents and the folks at Seven Days are scratching their heads over how they'll ever help their children with homework again.Learning the new math way
• The "new math" was introduced in schools across North America beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Predominantly a teaching technique, the new math abandoned rote learning in favour of child-initiated discovery of numbers. Focused on set theory and number bases in addition to 10, the new math taught advanced abstract math theory to school age children through the use of objects, diagrams and puzzles.• A 1964 Globe and Mail article gives the following example of the new math, in this case replacing the traditional "times tables" approach to learning multiplication: "In Grade 3, children might be asked how many combinations they could make of three blouses and two skirts; by drawing intersecting lines between sets of objects, they learn the conceptual meaning of two times three."
• One of the early difficulties encountered by teachers of the new math was how to evaluate students. "How do you evaluate understanding?" asked Dr. Edgar N. Wright, a proponent of the new math and director of research for the Toronto Board of Education.
• Much of the curriculum of the new math as seen in this clip did not survive the 1970s. Even one of the chief creators of the new math, Max Beberman, expressed serious concerns over how it was being taught, especially given the limited training and preparation offered to those expected to teach the subject.
Learning the new math way
Medium: Television
Program: This Hour has Seven Days
Broadcast Date: Jan. 10, 1965
Host: John Drainie, Laurier LaPierre
Duration: 11:52
Last updated:
April 1, 2008
Parade host Bill Walker chats with kids on their first day at Toronto's John Fisher Public School.
Learning the new math way.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: April 1, 2008.
[Page consulted on Feb. 23, 2012.]