Posted on 02/26/2021 9:21:03 AM PST by CharlesOConnell
I was dumb in math, I only got an 86 on standardized testing (that Mr. Gatto says is only good to predict results on the next standardized test).
But the thing that helped me eventually get an A in calculus, was that I saw these cool slide rules, so at 13 I taught myself logarithms. I had a book with tables.
So, though a high school counselor put in the dumb chemistry, with the nursing students, I kept up doing simple, old, rote memorization drills: Thru Algegra 2 and into Math Analysis/College Math in 12th grade--I'm stupid--we didn't try to re-invent 2,500 years of math from Archimeded to Gauss, 1 step at a time, not jumping ahead, just plodding along, we just memorized algebra solution steps the same as we had memorized times tables. (At the end of a page of drills were special problems for the smart kids. I never could solve them.)
So, now, common core math has my granddaughter in tears, she hates it. Is it simply too big a bite for small mouths?
Or isn't it designed to make kids feel stupid, so they'll conform, do what they're told, not get any bright ideas, fit it with the economy of consumerism and dependency so they'll always have to be told what to do, never be allowed to grow up, never attain self-employment and autonomy?
86? Try 52.
“Do over” was so often written on my papers I thought it was my name.
I also corrected her spelling and showed her something pretty simple that corrected her problem....words need vowels.
They had their papers posted outside of their class....poor kids....being taught that wrong spelling is okay...cuz we don't want to hurt your feelings.
As a guy who barely touched trig in highschool. The navy got me thru calc , thermodynamics, newtonian and einstienian physics, reactor fundimentals, reactor core construction, motor and generator theory and metallurgy and a few courses I havent mentioned such as basic electricity and electronics and the steam cycle. And boiler water chemistry... all by rote memorizations.
College 1985. Math teacher said no calculators...slide rule only and told us to think in our head what the result should be...plus or minus...that turned out to be good advice.
86 yeah right some failure. False modesty vanity posting.
Had a military bred teacher for hydraulics. Amazing teacher who created experiments to go along with his verbal lessons. Can still picture the experiments....25 years later.
For those who don’t know, besides not requiring memorization of things like the times tables, another major fault of common core is exposing kids to math concepts before they are ready to understand them. I’ve subbed in 2nd grade classes where the kids are given fractions to play with—before they’ve even mastered basic addition.
They are exposed to concepts for a couple or three weeks before moving on to the next. There is no mastery of anything. You end up with 8th graders most of whom have to rely on calculators to do two and three digit addition. Whatever appears on the calculator’s screen, they will put down as the answer, no matter how absurd it is.
Kids learn more from drills? You betcha!
An old chemistry professor of mine once said, “From memorization comes knowledge.”
He was 100% correct. But of course that kind of thinking is not “progressive” enough. So goodbye to another proven learning method.
A younger friend’s wife completed her (non-technical) BS degree a few years ago. I looked at the math book, there was no math in it. Just pictures and words.
> I taught my granddaughter her times tables. The school wasn’t teaching it anymore. <
Please don’t blame the teachers for that. Those decisions are made at the upper administration levels.
A teacher friend of mine was doing a unit on basic multiplication. So she handed out a times table to all her students. No harm in that, right? Well, the principal went ballistic. The teacher was ordered to collect all those times tables the very next day. And she had better get every one back!
The school district’s rationale was that with hand-hand calculators so readily available, times tables are just a wasteful distraction.
So now you know why a fast-food clerk cannot do basic math. It’s not the clerk’s fault. And it’s not the clerk’s teacher’s fault. It’s the fault of idiotic school boards who listen to idiotic “educational consultants”.
You last sentence is it.
Not everyone is good at math. I won’t say that cannot be helped. Some grasp it innately, some with a little drill, some with a lot of drill, some never. Sigh. But the answer is not to concoct a convoluted alternative scheme like Common Core. I for one do not think it is a useful means of teaching slower kids, but it murders the cognitive ability of the sharper kids. For those kids who are good, being able to solve math problems yields a feeling of triumph, confidence, and with practice the feeling that you can CRUSH math problems. That of course is a microaggression and is to be discouraged. When I was young, I killed it at math; and there were few things I was good at and could CRUSH. I just think that feeling is something every kid needs to have, find, and discover within themselves, somewhere. Of course, that feeling is in itself to be crushed within the individual today.
For slower kids, yeah, you know, sometimes horrible rotten repetition and drill WILL WORK. Com Core says repetition will NEVER work. My nephew could not grasp math at all when he was a kid. Most of it was attention span. But his Dad drilled and drilled him, and today he is making astronomical jaw-dropping money working at a hedge fund.
CC is just a goofy piece of twisted, unproven gobbledygook to scramble young brains while textbook publishers can make BILLIONS. (Yes, with a “B”)
Breaking the primary rule for teaching math: Math skill is progressive. You must learn foundational concepts before progressing to the next concept, like placing one row of bricks on top of the other.
The other issue, memorization of tedious but ubiquitous -- and vital -- core elements such as times tables enables automaticity.
There are some parts of Common Core math which might be of benefit to a student who is going to major in math, but for the other 99.9% of the class, standard shortcuts such as long division are far more useful.
Correction:
You must learn master each foundational concept before progressing to the next concept
“There are some parts of Common Core math which might be of benefit to a student who is going to major in math...”
But they fail to see that the vast majority of humans aren’t good at math, don’t see the beauty of it and only want/need math to solve the kinds of problems that math can solve. Math teachers want to teach math as they wish they had been taught rather than how the subject needs to be taught for most people.
You nailed it.
Not only is not progressive enough, it is a manifestation of white supremacy and must be eradicated.
“I taught my granddaughter her times tables. The school wasn’t teaching it anymore.”
Back in the dark ages I had Mrs Martin, one of the old blue haired teachers, who had a knack for getting us up to speed on our multiplication tables.
Any kid unable to recite the required table on the assigned day got no recess time until they could.
Didn’t take but two times for me to understand she meant business!
I have a grandson in school now and he hates school. The math doesn’t make sense, the whole word concept is bewildering, etc, etc.
I do blame the teachers. If they were more interested in the kids instead of their union benefits, things would be different.
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