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| The Cold War |
| The Early Republic
The Cold War
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During the 1950s and 1960s, as the number of American
schoolchildren soared, mathematicians, psychologists, and educators began
to reexamine methods of teaching math. After the Soviet Union successfully
launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, better mathematics teaching was
linked to U.S. national defense.
Reformers argued that students would benefit from a more abstract approach to arithmetic and algebra that incorporated more sophisticated mathematical ideas. The curricula they developed, which went under the name of “New Math,” were highly controversial. |
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Blackboards and other instructional equipment remained part of the classroom, even as the principles taught became more abstract. The years during and immediately after World War II were a time of romances and many marriages, leading, in time, to a large new generation of arithmetic students.
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Starting in the 1870s, American instrument makers sold oversized drawing instruments for blackboard use. After World War II, as the enrollment at community colleges and technical schools expanded, so did math classes. The above dividers and protractor were used at the Bliss Electrical School, the forerunner of Montgomery College in Takoma Park, Maryland. |
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