is anyone out there???

"New" Math

My daughter Anna brought me her math homework last night. I was confident I could help her with it---she is in sixth grade, how difficult could it be, right?

Looking at it, however, I didn't recognize any of the terms on the paper. So, I told her to wait and ask her dad for help when he got home. I have to admit, I was relieved when he couldn't help her either. "Wait until your sisters get home," he said. The sad thing is that we are both college graduates and should be able to help our children with their homework---especially subjects like basic math.

It turns out my other children were able to help Anna with her math homework. As I looked at it, I commented that they got the same answers I did, which made me feel a little better. "But your work wasn't right," they informed me. Whatever. What math genius decided to take perfectly good math problems and while keeping the answers the same they make you do different steps in order for the problem to be correct? Surely, there is something better they can be doing with their time...

My theory is that it was a disgruntled teenage math genius who came up with this "new math." So now middle school students all over the country are going home with math homework and asking their parents for help, only to find out that they were right all along---their parents DON'T know anything! And they have proof, their parents can't even help them with something as simple as middle school math.