The concept of new math has been around since I was a kid in school. The compulsion for parents to complain about the new math has existed as long. Numbers have interacted with each other in the same way since counting was invented, but once every generation, a new genius came up with a better way to teach children what Johnny had left after he gave Cindy three of his apples.
The generational advancements in mathematical technique seem to come about every other year now. Either we’re producing new educational super-innovators at a highly accelerated rate or the educational super-innovator from the year before last wasn’t quite the bright light we were sold.
It seems like every time I get presented with one of my kids’ curriculums, it comes with the announcement that the school has started a new math program. In theory, each new math program is better than the last. I wait for my kids to make amazing advances in their understanding of arithmetic. They make plodding advancements, but any disappointment I may feel is soon washed away by news the school will soon be adopting an innovative new math curriculum.
None of these new maths has ever turned a child of mine into anything approaching a budding mathematician. They do succeed at making it impossible for me to give my kids any meaningful help with their math homework.
I assure you, I use arithmetic almost daily. At the risk of seeming a braggart, I am fairly accomplished at 1st-3rd grade level arithmetic.
Can I answer the questions on my kids’ homework assignments? No. I cannot.
Yesterday, my 3rd grader came to me for help with the following question:
“Enter the division that is shown when the fourth multiplier finger is down: ___ ÷ ___ = ___”
I don’t know what the fourth multiplier finger is, or what it means. I know a lot more about what the third finger means, and I just about gave it to this math program. Then I remembered a child was present.
Anyhow, shouldn’t a math problem have some sort of numbers or variables in it?
Fortunately, my boy knew just enough about the mysterious fourth finger to teach me that it somehow meant 4 x 9 = 36. He was sketchy on how division worked into it, though.
Being the math geniuses we are, father and son alike, we reversed it to 36 ÷ 9 = 4. It turns out that was the right answer. Don’t ask me why. It’s a genius thing.
It seems like math is nowadays most important to education in figuring out how much money can be made by selling new and improved programs to schools biannually. Ages ago, I learned that 3 x 9 = 27 without having to flip off any innocent bystanders, but maybe not flipping off bystanders is the mark of someone whose time has passed.
Stay tuned, in case I learn how fingers 1, 2, and 5 are useful to mankind.
Snoozing on the Sofa 
What happened to good old fashioned math? What does a forth multiplier finger have to do with numbers? I was asking as I read what IS a forth multiplier finger? I’d be using that third finger too if I had a question like that broached my way. I don’t get this new math. These poor kids! How frustrated they must be and how helpless their parents feel as well. What IS the point?
There has to be a “trick” for figuring out every little thing now. Unfortunately, the tricks are oftentimes much more complicated than merely memorizing simple facts.
Agreed. Mine are in 9th grade and freshman in college. Thank goodness I don’t have to help the college student with her homework! But now with online learning and NO TEXTBOOKS, how in the world do we expect us to help? Good luck with that multiplier finger.
I was very proud of myself that I didn’t complain about online learning during this entire post. The temptation is great, but I’m trying my best to find the bright side of it all.
It truly is ridiculous. Kids are taught Math SO differently from the way we have.
I don’t remember the proper nomenclature, but I remember a couple of weeks ago, a woman on the radio was complaining about how she had to add some numbers before she could deduct some more to arrive at the answer to x-y.
And the whole virtual homework annoys me. As if we needed any more screen time…
At least that woman had some variables to build upon. I would have given my kingdom for an x or a y. They are more useful to me than a finger I don’t know what to do with.
The Greeks would certainly be confused.
Sent from my iPad
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I can’t wait until the kids get a little older and we have to do geometry on our fingers!
Oh man, math is a swear word in general with me. Add in new math and I don’t even want to think about it. Thankfully I don’t have to. There is something to be said for the third finger though.
We don’t call it the third finger anymore. Thanks to the miracle of finger math, we refer to it as old number 27.
So no we tell people off by saying “27?”
If that feels right to you. Otherwise you could give them a quick flip the old #27 finger.
Haha! What’s the #27 finger?
Apparently math nowadays is all based on the number 9. So #27 finger is the one you raise as the result of the formula: 27/9 = ___. It’s kind of in the middle of the hand.
Gah! Umm…Yeah
Have Alexa help the kids, she has all the answers. Just don’t ask her for the definition of a certain four letter word that begins with the sixth letter of the alphabet and ends with the eleventh. I tried once and she coped an attitude real quick.
When Alexa flips you the middle finger, it’s time to put the bottle down, Tom.
This is giving me a headache just reading about it. I bowed out of helping my kids in math around 6th grade. Fortunately, their father is good at it.
I used to think I was good at it. I was living a lie.
Well, Scott, much like you my best guess is that as long as four nines will always count up to 36, math will forever stay the same. Good luck with the new education, old friend!
Here’s hoping that they keep totaling 36 until my kids get out of school, Mark. After that, the nines are somebody else’s fingers’ problem.
I’m confused, Snoozin, but I’m with you on giving it the third finger rather than the fourth. Anyway, I thought you said these were ADVANCES in math. I thought fingers came BEFORE doing sums on paper, in your head, and on a calculator (with an abacus thrown in there somewhere). May the Fourth Be With You, my friend. 🙂
These ARE advances. Each new system makes more money for the school workbook industry than the last. Clearly, that’s an important improvement.
Whatever you say, Snoozin.
Math used to be a subject where there was just right or wrong answer. Now it feels so complicated! The whole fourth finger multiplier being down thing? Wtf does that even mean? Good on you my friend for even making an attempt. I would be like, go ask your dad.🤔
In my case, somebody already told him to go ask his dad. That’s how I got involved in the first place.
Hmmm, I wonder who that might have been🤔
It’s a deep mystery.
New and improved ways of …getting any money because schools are struggling? Another reason why getting an A+ only means you’re great at school not what they’re supposed to be teaching the kids.
Math is at least important in finances. Kids will have to count money if they want to grow up…
That’s why I want to get my kids into the workforce ASAP. So they can learn by adding up all the money they’ve earned and subtracting the rent portions owed to Dad.