New math

It is no secret that many students are having trouble understanding math. To make matters worse some experts are using math to explain gender differences. Here is an excerpt from a book by Eugenia Cheng a mathematician on how it would work. To set up this “removing by adding” metaphor, she discusses mathematical notions that have done similar things. For example, she argues that by introducing the concept of i — the square root of negative one — and the accompanying notion of a complex plane, we may have temporarily made things more confusing, but we get so much clarity from it (the geometric understanding of the nth roots of unity, for example) that the added complexity pays off. It adds clarity even as it adds a dimension to our thinking, or to her point, perhaps because it adds a dimension to our thinking and gives us more room to move. Now I am familiar with high school math, things like imaginary numbers (i) and complex planes using i but I have no idea what this lady is saying. Please do not introduce this stuff to high school math and please ask these experts to quit trying to help. Instead find a way to help students to add fractions.