What is This New Math?

Submitted by Jannet Park, Lower School Math Specialist

As your children bring home math homework, you may have thought: “Wait—this isn’t how I learned it!” You’re not alone. Just the other day, I was watching The Incredibles and heard Mr. Incredible shout in frustration, “Why would they change math?” Many parents share that same sentiment.

However, the good news is that math has not actually changed- we just value a deeper kind of math! We want our students to build lasting conceptual understanding.

When many of us learned math, success often meant following steps correctly and getting to the right answer. Today’s classrooms still value accuracy—but the journey to the answer matters just as much as the answer itself.

Students at DE are encouraged to visualize numbers using models, drawings, and number lines, explain their reasoning aloud and in writing and choose strategies that make sense to them, not always following a procedure.

This shift doesn’t mean the old ways are wrong—it means we’re helping kids see why they work. Understanding the “why” makes learning stick.

“New math” is really about sense-making. When students use strategies like make a ten to solve 9 + 6 by connecting it to 10 + 5, they’re developing mental flexibility and efficiency. When they explore multiplication as “equal groups of,” they can reason through larger problems (ex: finding 9 boxes of 16 donuts by relating it to 10 groups of 16 minus 1 group of 16).

In discussing and comparing different methods, students learn that math is not about speed, but about thinking, reasoning, and creativity. These are the very skills they’ll need in our ever-changing world.

Small shifts in conversation make a big difference. Instead of asking, “What’s the answer?” try, “How do you know?” or “Can you show me another way?” By celebrating effort, perseverance, and reasoning over speed and accuracy, we nurture children’s curiosity and confidence, which is the heart of mathematical thinking.