Why Johnny can't addMorris Kline
Why Johnny can't add
by Morris Kline · first published 1973
6mentions
1recommended by
5HN commenters
2017–2026first – last mentioned
20% recommend80% neutral
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Common core was rammed through to prod without proper a/b testing or canarying. All the criticisms of the "New Math" of the 1960s are just as applicable to it today. See Morris Kline's «Why Johnny Can't Add» on archive.org.
on “U.S. math scores drop on major international test” ↗…development and a standardization for ease of teaching, with the Original Discoverer's process of arriving at his results. They are very different. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math : In his book, Why Johnny Can't Add: The Failure of the New Math, Morris Kline says that certain advocates of the new topics "ignored completely the fact that mathematics is a cumulative development and that it is practically impossible…
on “Ask HN: Books on Maths/Physics/etc. explaining the Original Discoveries?” ↗…My son's experience being on the bad side. However we have seen this picture before. Everything that I just said about Common Core could have been said 50 years ago about New Math. The result was Why Johnny Can't Add, and the "Back to Basics" movement. Want to bet on whether something like this happens again with Common Core? And so I predict that our educational system won't figure out how to do Common Core right.…
on “Abacus use can boost math skills” ↗…motivates the NEXT reform wave, which they then also profit on. My mother became a school teacher in the 1950s, and this cycle was ALREADY in progress back then. (Think Sputnik leads to New Math leads to Why Johnny Can't Add, etc.) Switching to already existing books for an approach that actually will work would be a disaster for the education establishment. And so we'll never do it. No matter how embarrassing our regular…
on “Someone Has to Run the Fabs” ↗It's been done (look up New Math) and it didn't work (see Why Johnny Can't Add). You can find the rationales for the successive fashions in the abundant literature of mathematics education. Personally my take is that it doesn't work because you need certain analytical maturity…
on “What if nobody is bad at maths?” ↗Four forces: 1) Books like "Why Johnny Can't Read" (1955) and "Why Johnny Can't Add" (1973), 2) emotional intelligence, like in Goleman, 3) kids creating new social structures, a little further than Postman World Makers, 4) letting kids learn at different paces. I think the people…
on “Ask HN: What is the new role for schools?” ↗