New New Math - Tech vs Art

Differences

Between math

And Singapore math

Dedicated to sister clara at st bernards central catholic high school who is now solving derivatives in that great calculus conic section in the sky – the greatest math mind of my life

With apologies to the Korean yummy mummy who admitted to me that though ‘Singapore is the best math in the world, Korean is second best’ and is a testament to my eternal lust for my wife and my sporadic lusts for our Jewel who was born in Singapore, that I didn’t abandon the Singaporean ship for the promise of kim chi breakfasts et cetera. Kam sam ni da just the same ^^.

Ok

In “old” math like the kind I was raised on (and kicked butt in and was a grammar/high school star in and got an 800 in my SAT’s thank you very much) it's educational efficacy depended on the intrinsic trust of institutions that Americans embraced after world war two so if dad tells you to memorize your times tables dammit you should.

And there is nothing wrong with that cuz I to this day can feel in my fingers that eight times nine is seventy two and there just isn’t any other possibility

But lots of kids in my class couldn’t get that and not only that but they didn’t see why eight just couldn’t get over it once in a while and make nine seventy six

So there was this thing, which years later got called ‘right/left brain’ cognition and basically I called it ‘technology vs art’ and since I don’t work on tv or in the papers and am too lazy to write books, no one gives a crap about my theories, but the thing remains that math for the most part was what they would call a left brain activity meaning more or less ‘shove your poetry and your imagery and memorize your times tables and everything else will work out’ or what I would call ‘pure technology.’ Which for many, is boring.

Now of course this lends to the geeks loving it and the others abiding it and most loathing it cuz lets face it if you wanted to have a drop dead great movie party watching Caddyshack and decided to serve a menu of organic blue corn tortillas with boiled red beans and garlic and açai cherry drink and nothing else and explained that this was a nutritionally perfect meal, people would basically go to Rally’s and watch ‘The Hills’ while eating a Big Buford, Loaded Fries and a Coke. I mean there is nothing wrong with either meal except one is all technology and one is all art. (please don’t flame me about my using Rally’s as art, I mean they are art the way Norman Rockwell is art, accessible, easily digested – Ok its all techno food in the Michael Pollan sense but I don’t want to talk about it now so STFU).

Back to math.

Singapore math wants the numbers to be an alive thing in the student’s mind. I mean sure in the old math they had three apples plus five apples plus one apple equals nine apples and then five apples plus three apples plus one apple equals the same thing and then brusquely explained that this was the “Associative Principle.” And this was in the first chapter. And no one really defined what ‘Associative’ meant which if you think about it doesn’t mean anything – why didn’t they just say ‘Associating?”

Anyway

The point I didn’t make though I’m trying is that they drew apples, and by the lameness of the art in this tech-only club you could tell begrudgingly, because they wanted to … ‘You know, for kids.’

I was cursed with a form of synesthesia which made numbers have colors and personalities and good and bad breath (I love twelve, I always will), and made math really easy for me, and nuns question my boredom, and fellow students hate me - but to be honest I was glad I had it when I found out Nabokov had it too, anyway the point is unless you were a freak or especially afraid of authority (I was both) math was not going to work for you.

Now Singapore, that glorious city state with the best bird park in the world and a hottie almost as hot as my wife native: They ask you in the first chapter “What is heavier, an elephant or a leaf?”

Even the jocks could get this right in my high school.

Building on this idea that we intrinsically understand the gravity of a elephant, we could also get the gravity of eighty six vs forty seven. By subbing back and forth between numbers and THINGS, numbers BECOME things. And who is scared of a leaf?

Tlicks

Ok now the ‘tricks’ that us westerners (and they don’t call us round eyes cuz they don’t think they have slant eyes – they call us ‘big noses’) these famous Oriental tricks they teach are actually ways to look at numbers that exist but our paradigm has foreclosed – pretty much like the way East-hemispherians have pointed out in the last decade or so that you don’t really have to cook fish to enjoy it. How’s that been working out for our food/kewl date paradigm?

They teach a kid to mentally corral numbers in logical patterns – “Well forty seven and fifty five have to be bigger than twenty seven and thirty six therefore …” You see its not a trick its properties of numbers that we understand but just don’t need to put a name on just yet – ask any golfer how he picked a club for a shot and its exactly the same thing – and then I dare you to accuse him or her of using a trick.

By the way in the old math, if you slept thru high school, you would have to say forty seven plus fifty five is one hundred and two”

“No! One hundred two!” comes the inappropriate correction.

Big breath (these were the days before kids brought guns to school, so all was well for the teacher). “And twenty seven and thirty six is sixty three therefore the first solution is greater than the second.”

This is the byproduct of our dualistic society – get all the answers and then make a conclusion.

BTW no one explained what ‘solution’ or ‘conclusion’ meant either because no one really dared introduce grammar into such a tense setting … it's not this plus this IS this – it’s ARE this – but in the global view of Singapore math -- you have fifty five elephants joining forty seven ants well of course there ARE one hundred two animals at the picnic.

Another trick exposed!! Luridly written and it is my hope, read

Numbers are groups of other numbers – never tell an old school mathique this – cuz well nine times nine is eighty one and well there are other ways to get to eighty one but I really wouldn’t want to get into that mess …

But actually eight one is eight tens and one … well … one.

So we can play with those tens any way we want – forty six and thirty five? Well that’s seven tens, no wait eight tens and looky there! A one! Three times twenty seven? Oh god that wasn’t on the times table!!! Silly rabbit, tricks are for Asians – it’s just three times two tens are six tens, three times seven gives us two more tens and hey! That sonofabitchin one again!

Ok the times tables would beat Singapore on nine times nine by itself cuz hey I was up all night remembering every iteration of every single digit times every other one – it’s not that hard and its groovy when you start digging on the journey of nine --- But when is someone going to say to you ‘You gave us nine great days of work at nine dollars a day, so that will be … and if you say “Eighty one!” instead of “Muthafukka you better pay me more than that!” than you flunk more than math. So let’s say you have to deal with a real multiplication

I mean let’s say the Red Sox have given up sixteen runs every weekend for fifteen weekends and there are twelve weekends left – what can we expect from these tiring pitchers arms? Oh for the love of Jesus get me my Excel sheet!

But in Singapore math, with elephants and starfruit and (I have to admit) hot Singaporeans running around instead of scary sixteen times fifteen I fear not –

Let me break it down old school and new:

Sixteen times fifteen is six time five that’s thirty

And then let’s remember to carry the three and remember to add the three to six times one which gives us six plus three is nine so that’s ninety

Ok now forget everything so far! Except that you have a ninety waiting for you

And now one times five is five but remember to move it over a space and then one times one whew thank god the baseball season isn’t forty seven weeks long that’s one so now its ninety plus fifteen but that’s actually one fifty so the answer is

240

And now we gotta do extra stuff for the pennant race … mental stretching I will just check out Bill James’ latest book or at least see what Peter Gammons says on ESPN.

New school

In the land of caning they might say (in one of several languages btw but that’s another blog) there are one tens in fifteen so sixteen of those tens are 160 and the five ones left over make 50 more tens from the sixteen and now we are left with five ones times six ones giving us three more tens giving us 240 elephants the Blosox have given up

You see how that’s easier on the brain? You would if you didn’t have old school clogging your pothead mind ...

And then the snotty Singapore kid would say so we can expect 192 more runs in the last twelve weeks but then he would add too smugly that the Sox are going to host the Yankees the Rays and the rising Jays and Dice K is always hurt cuz they work him too much and the league will have figured out Tim Wakefield and pencil in two tough starts for Buch and Lester and so it will be more like 234.

Oh god I friggin' hate math!!

Anyway

That is the quicky white boy skinny on why the yellow peril kicks our butts in math, cars, video games, and other techie stuff.

Cuz its not all tech – theres art in there too.