Word: beberman
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Died. Dr. Max Beberman, 45, originator of the still controversial "new math"; of heart disease; in London. Beberman revised the conventional mathematics curriculum for an experimental high school in Urbana, Ill., in the early 1950s on the premise that learning by rote bores children. His techniques encouraged students to discover basic mathematical principles on their own initiative, and though some remain skeptical, the new math is coming into increasing use throughout...
...math is rote learning of unexplained rules ("carrying," for instance); new math tries to cut away mystery by making computation seem real, open and understandable. New math is here to stay. But, as many a baffled parent suspects, the teaching of it is in deep confusion. Max Beberman, the Illinois professor who has been urging new math on the U.S. for a decade, is now "very much disturbed...
...Popsicle Sticks. "We're in danger of raising a generation of kids who can't do computational arithmetic," says Beberman. He still favors new math, when properly taught, as strongly as ever; one of his ideas is that the first purchase of equipment for elementary-school math classes should be 25,000 Popsicle sticks, to let children deal with tangible things because "enumeration systems are ways of talking about physical objects...
...hazard in teaching new math is that its basic concepts-sets, number systems not based on ten, lattices-require profound comprehension by teachers, which usually entails plenty of upgrading study. Professor Robert Wirtz, an associate of Beberman's at the University of Illinois, visited more than 100 elementary schools all over the U.S. and reported: "The teachers I found are frightened. They don't understand the new math or why they are supposed to teach...
...Beberman says: "The old system was deadly-drill, drill, drill. What I'd like to do is take all these people who say, 'Let's have new math, let's get it into the schools,' and shake them up and say, 'First let's make sure the teachers who are going to teach it know what's going on.'" Badly taught, new math plants confused concepts and creates individuals who cannot even keep their check stubs figured, and Beberman never intended that. "The key thing is computation," he says...