I was in elementary school in the early 1960s. We had New Math. We learned set theory and how to do arithmetic in any base from 2 to 10. It was fun for a buddi

I was in elementary school in the early 1960s. We had New Math. We learned set theory and how to do arithmetic in any base from 2 to 10. It was fun for a budding math geek. However I kept failing miserably at the tests of memorization of the multiplication table. I knew how to add, so I didn't see the point of memorizing something that I could simply derive by repeated addition.