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This is not the first time they've tried to reinvent subtraction. There
was "New Math" in the Sixties...
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The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."
>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
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I started kindergarten in 1967, so my elementary-school math spanned both traditional and "new math", and I have to admit, I profited from both. On the new math side, though, learning Base 8 stuff set me up very nicely for binary when I went into computers, and the "understanding what you're doing rather than learning how to get the right answer" that Tom Lehrer lampooned helped me figure out on my own a handful of techniques that let me do a lot of math very fast in my head. (To the point that just yesterday afternoon my sister telephoned me while I was driving home from work to ask me to compute a couple of probabilities for her. No joke.) Of course, starting from a grounding of traditional arithmetic instruction helped a lot -- I'd say teach both ways, in alternating years maybe, for maximum profit. But even if it's complicated, there's nothing inherently wrong in it. I found something of use in everything presented to me. I do have problems with higher maths -- I flunked calculcus in college, for instance. (Although to be absolutely honest at least part of that was because the TA in my classes was slowly going insane from loneliness and homesickness, until he finally suffered a complete break toward the end of the semester. I was kind of turned off by that.)
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
