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basically, there is a reason we don't start mathematics education with set theory, even though it's more "fundamental" Ah, that brings back memories, because I

by SiVal 14y ago

basically, there is a reason we don't start mathematics education with set theory, even though it's more "fundamental" Ah, that brings back memories, because I grew up in the heyday of "New Math". We called September "Set-tember", because every September year after year we started each school year with yet another review of sets: union, intersection, subsets, empty sets. If Set A contains blah-blah and Set B contains foo-foo, list the elements in A union B, A minus B, etc., etc., et cetera. We were all so sick of sets we could hardly stand it, had no idea why they were seemingly the most important topic in all of math, and couldn't wait to get past sets and, around October or so, find out what we were actually going to do in math that year.

ptaipale 14y ago
Where was this? I had just the same, and I thought it was connected to the heyday of local loony left in Finland, where I live - the school system of German Democratic Republic (as well as the health system) was all the rage here. Maybe it had some good points too, but the focus on set theory for elementary school kids was just weird. My parents would ask me "What is this stuff, and why?" and I couldn't tell them. Neither did the textbook.
- SiVal 14y ago
  US East Coast, and it wasn't a leftist initiative. It was in response to the fierce competition from the Soviets in the "space race". We decided we had to get serious about math, meaning the math program should be decided by mathematicians. They produced "new math", which was based on mathematical theory instead of practical use of math or the cognition of education. It didn't work out. Then the left took over and created "new new math", also called "reform math", which is what we have now. It is ridiculously inefficient. I had no idea that you could do worse than new math, but that's what we have now.

by SiVal 14y ago

ptaipale 14y ago

Where was this? I had just the same, and I thought it was connected to the heyday of local loony left in Finland, where I live - the school system of German Democratic Republic (as well as the health system) was all the rage here. Maybe it had some good points too, but the focus on set theory for elementary school kids was just weird. My parents would ask me "What is this stuff, and why?" and I couldn't tell them. Neither did the textbook.

SiVal 14y ago
US East Coast, and it wasn't a leftist initiative. It was in response to the fierce competition from the Soviets in the "space race". We decided we had to get serious about math, meaning the math program should be decided by mathematicians. They produced "new math", which was based on mathematical theory instead of practical use of math or the cognition of education. It didn't work out. Then the left took over and created "new new math", also called "reform math", which is what we have now. It is ridiculously inefficient. I had no idea that you could do worse than new math, but that's what we have now.