Stand-back-stand-by Math

When President Trump repealed the “leftish” Common Core Math, approved by President Obama, with zero idea how to replace it with a better “rightish” math curriculum to help millions of US students compete internationally in math—he just wants to pacify opponents of the “left curriculum,” whose children can’t cope with it, in exchange for their votes.

Does the stand-back-stand-by math sound like some curricular or mathematical equivalent of the repeal-and-replace Obamacare? If politics over math could increase the odds of getting the president re-elected, the risks are worth taking.

by MathPlus October 1, 2020

Singapore Math, So Cheem

When someone describes the math taught in Singapore schools as being too difficult to understand, or complains that young students are unhealthily exposed to an obscene number of brain-unfriendly math questions—“cheem” means “deep” in the Chinese dialect Hokkien.

Ahmad who could hardly understand Mr. Goon’s lessons told his parents: “Singapore math, so cheem. I gave up!”

by MathPlus May 14, 2021

Samurai Math

Shortcuts that short-circuit hours of learning and practicing formal or traditional problem-solving methods to solving certain types of math problems.

Instead of spending hundreds of hours mastering the basics of school algebra, mature students or working adults with no formal education could be taught some quick-and-kill Samurai math methods, such as the Sakamoto method and the Stack Model Method.

by MathPlus August 22, 2017

Same-Same-But-Different Singapore Math

When the methodology and pedagogy used in Singapore math textbooks and supplementary titles (foreign and local editions) at the same grade are believed or perceived to be equivalent, yet the level of difficulty of the brain-unfriendly questions in both editions differs significantly—the tailor-made overseas editions are often one or two grades lower than the local one.

US math educators need to take note of the same-same-but-different Singapore math titles to temper their expectations of their students’ mathematical proficiency compared to that of their Singaporean counterparts.

by MathPlus August 30, 2021

Slavery Math

Math word problems of yesteryear that condones white racism or supremacism, such as the ungodly relationship between masters and slaves, lords and peasants, or colonizers and savages.

An 1814 issue of “The Analyst” poses the following slavery math problem: “If out of a cargo of 600 slaves, 200 die during a passage of 6 weeks from Africa to the West Indies; how long must the passage be that one half the cargo may perish? Supposing the degree of mortality to be the same throughout the passage, that is, the number of deaths at any time to be proportional to the living at the same time.”

by MathPlus November 10, 2020

Sweating like a marine about to do a math test

Sweating profusely either because of extreme heat, exercise or your under the pump (stressed to the eye balls).

Origins: Chris Mitchell, New Zealand Army (Rtd), proud to have served with many fine US Marines.

Fuck that was hard, I'm sweating like a marine about to do a math test.

by We are that RC brothers December 30, 2019

Simpsons Math

A pop cultural term for counting in base 8, because each character in the Simpson family was born with four fingers on each hand, which means they would count like this: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, …, such that all eight-fingered members could do without the symbols 8 or 9.

In Simpsons math, “If Homer and Marge and their four kids looked at two spiders, how would they write and pronounce the total number of their legs?” 20 and “two-zero” rather than “twenty.”

by MathPlus June 12, 2021