# We Are In Trouble... Common Core (math)



## Thorim (Jan 19, 2015)

This is kind of a long read but wow, read some of the comments as well lol. I researched this after my grandson brought home

some math work today.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/13412-whos-behind-the-common-core-curriculum


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

I help my 3rd grade son with his common core home work. It's just an illogical way of teaching. The word problems half the time hardly make sense and are hard for me to figure what answer they want. Never mind how can a 3rd grader figure it out.


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

I bought a meal at a fast food place. The total was $4.16. I gave the teen girl $4.26 (4 ones ,a quarter and a penny). She looked confused then kind of smirked. She said I gave her too much. I replied that I wanted a dime rather than pennies in change and to punch it on the register. She did and got big eyed, then asked, "Did you do that in your head?".


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

The example of the girl not understanding how to do the simple math is what common core is attempting to fix. We can do it without common core because we grew up in an analog world. Our teachers had way more authority in the classroom and personal accountability was reinforced with quite often physical consequences. Teachers authority had since been removed making the old way of teaching near impossible as the stimuli for overcoming innate mental patterns as differed as much as the individual. I agree at first some of the processes seem nonsensical but having a different way to look at the problem doesn't make it wrong. The girl at the cash register most likely didn't apply herself in grade school cementing the fundamentals. She is at the intersection of the cerebral vs visual learning processes. Having mastered the fundamentals of neither program her best hope is to be pretty. Whew kinda long winded for me.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

> *The example of the girl not understanding how to do the simple math is what common core is attempting to fix*. We can do it without common core because we grew up in an analog world. Our teachers had way more authority in the classroom and personal accountability was reinforced with quite often physical consequences. Teachers authority had since been removed making the old way of teaching near impossible as the stimuli for overcoming innate mental patterns as differed as much as the individual.





> The girl at the cash register most likely didn't apply herself in grade school cementing the fundamentals.


So, basically, Common Core is a work-around to *accommodate a problem *instead of fixing the problem(s)?

One thing that can be counted upon with the gummint, they create a problem with their intervention and claim the only fix for the problem is MORE intervention.

I have been quasi-following Common Core for a couple of years...it is far more political and sinister that it even appears on its face.

73, Mark


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I think I've got it!!

In CC math, 2+2 does NOT equal 4; but 2+2 equals 4. It all depends on which 2 is first!

Ralph


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## FCF (Apr 23, 2010)

Ralph is somewhat correct in which 2 is first, Read an article couple weeks ago where student got the problem of 5x3=15 marked wrong because when showing their work/reasoning they put down 5+5+5=15 where with common core it's 3+3+3+3+3=15. No wonder kids are screwed up gummint telling them there is only one way to think and none of them can think clearly on their own.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Not defending common core at all, but 5x3=15 is 5x5x5=15. 3x5=15 is 3x3x3x3x3=15. Though I'm not sure why they spend so much time on that concept as it really doesn't matter. And in Common core I've noticed there is a lack of just memorizing times tables. We had our son memorizing times tables this last summer. He argued having to do it then but now he appreciates it. Although having to "show his work" bothers him. It always bothered me also. As long as you get the answer who cares how you got there as long as the calculator didn't provide it.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

The way it looks to me they need to teach multiplication insteAd of trying to do it with addition.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I'm trying to remember my Abstract Algebra class from college (which, after last night, is a little more than difficult).

If I remember right, there is the matter of precedence which goes like this:

5x3 means "add 3 to itself 5 times", whereas 3x5 means "Add 5 to itself 3 times".

Therefore: 5x3 = 3+3+3+3+3 = 15 and 3x5 = 5+5+5= 15.

So, in reality, they are teaching college level mathematics to grader schoolers.

Good for them! I'm going back to bed now--my head hurts.

Ralph


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## Dill (Nov 5, 2010)

Its really just how you do math in your head with simple memorization. There is thought behind it. At first in the lower grades it seems like a waste of time but then it gels. I was helping my daughter and it occured to me it really how I've been doing mental math all along.

Its not common core math. Common core is an assessment just like no child left behind.


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## RockmartGA (Jun 29, 2011)

The problem is that schools try to rush students to higher levels without first allowing them to master the basics. The end result is that we now have 6th graders in algebra, but if you ask them what 7x6 equals, they give you the deer in the headlights look.

Admittedly, you can have great fun at their expense. Just wait until the teenage cashier keys in the amount tendered and then tell them, "Oh wait, I have the three pennies". You can almost see the bulges in their skull as they try to figure out the correct change.

Hell, the Egyptians figured out higher math 2500 years ago. For centuries, teachers taught math one way, you give the student something to write with and have them write out their multiplication tables hundreds of times until they can tell you what 7x6 equals without thinking about it.

Eisenhower warned us of the "Industrial - military complex". I submit there is an educational - industrial complex that is making huge money off of "new" ways to figure out 2+2 = 4.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

RockmartGA said:


> Eisenhower warned us of the "Industrial - military complex". I submit there is an educational - industrial complex that is making huge money off of "new" ways to figure out 2+2 = 4.


Good thought!

Ralph


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## cornshucker (Aug 22, 2011)

It all started with the U.S. Dept. of Education when it was formed in 1979 during the Carter Administration it's no coincidence that reading and math skills started their decline about the same time. Get the damn government out of education and put it back at the local level where at least the most of the time common sense prevails.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Tim/South said:


> I bought a meal at a fast food place. The total was $4.16. I gave the teen girl $4.26 (4 ones ,a quarter and a penny). She looked confused then kind of smirked. She said I gave her too much. I replied that I wanted a dime rather than pennies in change and to punch it on the register. She did and got big eyed, then asked, "Did you do that in your head?".


LOL Reminds me of a similar experience I had traveling to Indiana a few years back, in central Arkansas...

We had stopped at a McDonald's for grub and a pee break... I got a double cheeseburger and some fries and a drink, was something like $4.79... I pulled out a $5 and some change and was rifling through it, and saw I didn't have enough change to make sense, so I grabbed a five out of my wallet, and she punched the $5 bill key on the register...

At that moment, before I handed over the money, I figured right quick that if I gave her the four pennies I had, I could get rid of some change and get a quarter back instead, and since I had carrying a lot of loose change, I counted out the pennies and plopped them down with the five...

She looked at me like I just beamed down from Mars... I could tell instantly I just blew her mind, and she was going into panic mode because she'd already punched in the $5 instead of $5.04... she was just staring like a deer in headlights... I said, "it's okay-- I get a quarter back..." She looked at me skeptically and thought about it a second, and I could tell she didn't have a clue, but she decided that it was easier to just give me the quarter than void out the transaction and start over...

Geez... and these people want $15 bucks an hour, when they can't even put the [email protected] fries in the bag... LOL (That's about what my brother said the last time we got gypped at a fast food joint-- "We can put a man on the moon, but we can't put a [email protected] order of fries in the flippin' bag!" LOL To which I replied, "Well, we USED to be able to put a man on the moon, but that was $45 years ago...")

It is pretty pathetic though...

Later! OL JR


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Teslan said:


> Not defending common core at all, but 5x3=15 is 5x5x5=15. 3x5=15 is 3x3x3x3x3=15. Though I'm not sure why they spend so much time on that concept as it really doesn't matter. And in Common core I've noticed there is a lack of just memorizing times tables. We had our son memorizing times tables this last summer. He argued having to do it then but now he appreciates it. Although having to "show his work" bothers him. It always bothered me also. As long as you get the answer who cares how you got there as long as the calculator didn't provide it.


Ummm... 5x5x5=125, not 15... 5x5=25x5=125... 3x3x3x3x3=243, not 15... 3x3=9x3=27x3=81x3=243...

Yeah, the whole thing is just an excuse to avoid the drudgery of having to memorize the multiplication tables... kids "get bored" and don't want to do it, and the school wants to coddle them, so they come up with a hairbrained scheme instead so they can get the answer without having to memorize anything...

It's about like the stupid "whole language" approach to reading. I've seen the kids doing that... my daughter's school was teaching it that way, and we had already been teaching phonics at home, so she could read before she got there... but I've seen the kids "reading" and all that whole language crap is designed to do is allow them to recognize words by memorizing the first and last letters...

I've seen kids reading a story and if you change the name, say from "Liza" to "Linda" or something like that with the same first and last letters, they'll read it the way they memorized it every time... they'll say "Liza" even though the name reads "Linda" in the story after the change... and of course they do it with other words as well... All they see is the "L" and "a" on the ends and instantly read it as "Liza" rather than sounding it out in their head and recognizing it's changed...

I've caught Keira doing that reading, say, the Bible, versus the stories she's read in her reading class... she'll look at the first and last letter and read the word as something TOTALLY different because she's using that idiotic whole language stuff rather than sounding out the word... and I immediately jump on her because of it and make her correct it... She does it because it's just the LAZY way to read instead of actually READING properly!

Thing is, kids that have never been taught phonics don't have a clue... they come across a word they've never seen before, they don't have a clue... unless they memorize every word in the dictionary using whole language methods, and they don't of course...

And of course that nonsense does NOTHING to prepare them for any type of advanced or technological or new developments... I'd love to see a kid who learned whole language methods be confronted by some of the chemical names on typical ag pesticide labels, or even something as mundane as the word "deoxyribonucleic acid" (DNA)...

Course, Keira is completely off the charts with her reading scores... she has consistently ranked at the very top of whatever scale they're using for her particular grade... her "DRA" (district reading assessment" was a 42 last year... I read on her report card that it was actually higher, but they "quit counting" at 42...

Is it any wonder why more and more folks are "opting out" of the public school cesspools and either homeschooling or sending their kids to private schools??

I drove a bus for nine years, and I can tell you, these kids are WAY behind where we were... I went in to the middle school where my sister used to teach to give her some money for a trip we were riding along on as "chaperons" and I was SHOCKED at the writing projects that were pasted all over the cafeteria's hallway windows... the writing looked like the kids had had their hands hit with a hammer and then told to do the writing on their projects... it was pathetic; we'd have never gotten out of first or second grade with writing that bad!

The schools nowdays are only interested in two things-- passing the kids on to get them out of their hair, and teaching the state tests so that their state standardized test rankings and teacher assessments look good... that's it...

Later! OL JR


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## Growing pains (Nov 7, 2015)

I have a 20 month old son and this kind of makes me dread the day he goes to school and brings this crap home for homework. My wife and I must have been at the end of the normal way of doing math and reading.


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

I have mixed emotions on CC math. Years ago I got "volunteered" for a US Dept. of Ed. committee trying to come up with Computer Aided Design "skill standards" for training designers. Having gone through engineering school with a slide rule and Smoley's Combined Tables, I learned a lot, and have forgotten a lot, of math tricks that were useful for doing Trig in my head while laying something out using pencil and paper. The question we were trying to solve was "Given limited time in a class room, how much of that knowledge is relevant today and how much will be useful tomorrow?"

What I learned in school was appropriate for a point in time when we had half the population we have today, we were recovering from WWII and rebuilding our economy, we were in the midst of a "cold war", and the usefulness of knowledge lasted much longer because rate of innovation was much slower. Today is a drastically different world, where the half-life of knowledge, in many fields, is around 12-18 months. That means that half of what you learned 18 months ago, is obsolete today. How do you teach for that? What fundamentals do you teach that will allow the children of today to deal with the ever increasing rate of innovation and complexity that they will encounter in their lives? Unfortunately, we could not answer that 20 years ago, and I don't think they are any closer today. We don't have crystal balls and the best we can do is extrapolate trends and try to anticipate where and what the major disruptions will be.

"What you teach" is only half of the problem. "Who and how you teach it" is the other part. A starting teacher today is dealing with a totally different demographic than one who started 10 years ago. His/her principle started even further in the past. Who teaches the teachers and how do you do it? Couple that problem with unions and school boards who have competing agendas, parents who both work full time, and crazy politicians who sell simplistic solutions that will never work and you wonder if our kids will survive.....They will. Complex problems are not solved by simple over-arching solutions put in place by political "leaders". They are solved by individual teachers working to fix problems where they can effect change in-spite of the "help" they get from the politicians, unions, and well-meaning parents. It's that way in every industry.

A good example is a friend of mine's son who I've known since he was a dysfunctional teenager. Here's his TED Talk on teaching math and the results achieved: 




Sadly he's no longer in the classroom, but they are making progress in changing some of the concepts in how you teach a subject. I've enjoyed watching their progress and it reinforces my views of an interesting future for our kids.....


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## Thorim (Jan 19, 2015)

Mike120 said:


> I have mixed emotions on CC math. Years ago I got "volunteered" for a US Dept. of Ed. committee trying to come up with Computer Aided Design "skill standards" for training designers. Having gone through engineering school with a slide rule and Smoley's Combined Tables, I learned a lot, and have forgotten a lot, of math tricks that were useful for doing Trig in my head while laying something out using pencil and paper. The question we were trying to solve was "Given limited time in a class room, how much of that knowledge is relevant today and how much will be useful tomorrow?"
> 
> What I learned in school was appropriate for a point in time when we had half the population we have today, we were recovering from WWII and rebuilding our economy, we were in the midst of a "cold war", and the usefulness of knowledge lasted much longer because rate of innovation was much slower. Today is a drastically different world, where the half-life of knowledge, in many fields, is around 12-18 months. That means that half of what you learned 18 months ago, is obsolete today. How do you teach for that? What fundamentals do you teach that will allow the children of today to deal with the ever increasing rate of innovation and complexity that they will encounter in their lives? Unfortunately, we could not answer that 20 years ago, and I don't think they are any closer today. We don't have crystal balls and the best we can do is extrapolate trends and try to anticipate where and what the major disruptions will be.
> 
> ...


What those young men are talking about is what teaching should be, amazing, not this common core junk. Thanks for sharing and I believe your views and observations on spot on.


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

Thorim said:


> What those young men are talking about is what teaching should be, amazing, not this common core junk. Thanks for sharing and I believe your views and observations on spot on.


I appreciate your comment. The issue I have with CC is that it only addresses a symptom of the problems in our education system. It is a short-term fix to give people the impression that the bureaucrats in DC and the State capitols (from either party) actually give a damn about our future rather than only their's. It may be well-meaning at a certain level, but like chicken soup for a cold, it won't cure the problem.....but you might feel better. Quite simply, you cannot have uniform education results without having uniform education funding, uniform teacher training/delivery, and a uniform commitment to education by the population. We are way too fragmented for that and all of the countries who have implemented similar standards are smaller and have much more of the required uniformity than we do. The most CC can actually achieve is to highlight the vast educational differences across the country....which may, or may not, be a bad thing.

The math portion of CC is actually pretty good and directed toward developing an understanding of numbers using the base-ten system. The techniques go back to development of numbers and the best examples (and K-5 teaching tools) are counting sticks and/or an abacus. It IS much better than the rote learning and memorization through repetition that they used to teach us math because it provides an better understanding of the fundamentals. The problem is in the implementation. Many teachers don't understand it and most parents don't either. It's pretty difficult to answer Johnny's questions with that deer-in-the-headlights look, and a "damned if I know" response doesn't encourage learning.

What Sean and Dan addressed is the one of the major roadblocks to learning which is an understanding of the fundamentals required before you can understand a higher concept. In engineering we use decomposition and hierarchy and they did the same thing with concepts. They also have an interesting feedback cycle that they use in their technique to identify any kids with problems so they can be addressed quickly. The biggest thing they have done is that they shifted their role from "teacher" to "facilitator of self-learning". They are no longer lecturing to bored students, they are helping them accomplish the acquisition of base knowledge.

For most of us, the knowledge we have was acquired after we left school. How fast and how much we acquired was largely dependent on how well we understood the fundamentals and how much we applied ourselves to learning new things. As science dives deeper into the basic building blocks of matter and life, those fundamentals will become even more complex. My personal feeling is that teaching kids to love learning and facilitating their acquisition of basic knowledge is the most important thing we do, 'cause they have to solve the problems in the world. Interestingly, sometime back I came to realize that I was learning more from my kids than I ever did from my parents and I am, and will, learn more from my grandchildren than I will from my kids. It's an interesting perspective, because they are the future......


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