Mama Kat Thursday: The Math War
The Mama Kat Prompt today is: "Tell us about your 6th grade teacher." I actually had two 6th grade teachers who split teaching various subjects: Mrs. Daglish and Mr. Denny, who was also the principle. Now Mr. Denny taught the math segment and he was at war with the "New Math." It was 1968. I attended a rural elementary school where 1st first through 6th grade were still being housed in the same building. (No junior high back then.) There was just one 6th grade class in one room consisting of about 35 students and we stayed in that room together all day except for recess. New Math Long Division In those days, mathematics were taught by a method called "The New Math." I'd learned how to do long division using this New Math method in 5th grade, which looked something like the example to the left. In chart-like fashion, the answers were arranged down the right side of the problem rather then along the top and any fractional rema...