Tom Lehrer - New Math (Animated)

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Strong rec MrMember · 2018-04 · on “Tom Lehrer at 90: a life of scientific satire”

My favorite Tom Lehrer song is probably New Math. [this video] With its clever lyrics and rapid fire delivery it sounds like it could have come out last year and not fifty years ago.

Recommends mturmon · 2013-11 · on “A ridiculous Common Core test for first graders”

It's inevitable to link to this now: [this video] It's Tom Lehrer, about 50 years ago, explaining subtraction in the context of the "new" math (the base-8 stuff starts at 2:40). Worth a listen.

Recommends 123894893 · 2024-05 · on “Why did Tom Lehrer swap fame for obscurity?”

Yes, he's mocking the idea of teaching borrowing. He gives the way he thinks subtraction should be taught in the intro. It's a way that, as far as I can tell, hasn't been taught in America in over half a century. After the intro, he goes on to mock the concept of borrowing, which was (apparently) part of New Math. Then in the final verse he mocks the idea of teaching bases. Here's a good animated version of the song that shows the different methods. You'll notice that the "silly" New Math method is the way that makes sense to Americans today, and the "simple" method preferred by Lehrer is very confusing for anyone who's not used to it: [this video] Here's more of the intro which makes it clear wh

Recommends OskarS · 2024-05 · on “Why did Tom Lehrer swap fame for obscurity?”

Yeah, ultimately it's the same algorithm, it's just a question of what are the details of the procedure, which makes it confusing if you've learned one way and not the other. The whole point of the song is that Lehrer thinks this is a new, less good way of doing subtraction. Look at this video if you haven't already: [this video] The first way he does it seems INCREDIBLY confusing to people who learned arithmetic in the last 30 or so years (the sentence "8 from 4 is 6" is nonsensical to most such people), but the "modern" way he's mocking is perfectly understandable. I think the song is very funny and charming, but I do think this is a rare case where Lehrer is just wrong, the "borrowing" style i

Cites virmundi · 2020-04 · on “Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)”

America did this too. There was the New Math trend in the 50-60s which feels like common core. Here's a comedy song about it from that era. [this video]

Cites bryanrasmussen · 2020-08 · on “Tom Lehrer's Mathematical Songs (1951)”

doesn't have New Math [this video] growing up we had two Tom Lehrer albums (I guess my parents had their good points)

Cites lkbm · 2021-06 · on “The Teaching of Arithmetic I: The Story of an experiment (1935)”

It's not quite the same, but there've been several efforts in the US to shift math education away from "memorize this algorithm for addition, this one for multiplication, etc." and instead get kids to understand our number system. New Math was ridiculed for it[0], and now Common Core[1]. "Why are you teaching kids these inefficient ways of multiplying instead of memorizing the standard algorithm?" Despite it being the focus of Tom Leher's song, my go-to test for "Do you understand our number system?" is "Can you work out a multiplication problem in base 8?" If you understand the concept of digits, you can solve multiplication in other bases, and likely have solid grasp on how our number syst

Cites remexre · 2021-09 · on “Finger counting gives away your nationality”

I think it depends on what curriculum your school's using; non-base-10 math is a punchline in Tom Lehrer's "New Math" [1]. Common Core might be getting rid of it? As a side note, comparing the complaints in "New Math" (from 1965) to those offered about Common Core is educational :) [1]: [this video]