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To: old and tired

The effort to remove multipication table memorization from the curriculum began back in the ‘70s in my experience. My kids had a 3rd/4th grade teacher who swore the parents to secrecy that she was teaching the kids multiplication tables by memory. She told us that she’d lose her job if the principal and the school board found out. This was in CA.

I don’t know if the situation was really that dire, but all of the parents wanted their kids in her class, and the kids just loved her.


20 posted on 05/23/2013 6:12:54 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: afraidfortherepublic
Some of the old school stuff that works they don't let teachers spend as much time on. For instance they will teach alternate ways to multiply such as lattice multiplication. The rules for some of the alternate ways of doing things can be confusing and can result in students not consistently getting the right answers. This also goes for division where they can end up teaching alternate methods. The principals tend to want to see bells and whistles. For example some principals frown on a teacher writing on the board, too old school.

How exactly this fits into common core I am unsure but there is a general theme here.

Like someone else said in their above comment they are taking a lot of autonomy, individualization, and personal style away from the teacher. They are limiting a teacher's academic freedom to teach. They are trying to make it so that every room looks the same if a principal walks around from room to room and so that every teacher is teaching the same thing the same way.

As a result in meetings a teacher can accuse a teacher of not being on the same page or subject matter as everyone else and can stop them from teaching what they were going to teach. This can prevent teachers from using innovative teaching methods.

Basically it is communism for the teachers.

The general theme here is that the Common Core steers teachers more towards this teacher communism and gives the teachers less freedom to teach to their best ability, than the state standards did.

21 posted on 05/24/2013 1:57:37 AM PDT by Freedom of Speech Wins
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