I’ve often thought that the dumbing down of the educational system is to produce minds that can be easily manipulated into their “new” truths. I took my first masters in education 1-8. Deeply not impressed. The teacher of math teachers taught rigid rote to her student teachers. That was either because of her opinion of their ability to ingest the material, or to her lack of understanding of it. So sorry to hear about the “asking.” Never heard of that before. So sad. I found many of the lessons on amusing the students while you teach worked out wonderfully with adults, so it wasn’t a waste of a year.
I have a theory that Common Core was designed to change children’s perception of their parents as reliable sources of knowledge. Children’s reliance on their parents has always been an impediment for the indoctrination efforts of those who manipulate school curriculum. So the shift to Common Core meant parents couldn’t help students with their homework -it opened a crack in the doorway to letting ideologically driven curriculum usurp parent’s roles. So children stop thinking that teachers help them learn things their parents already learned; instead they believe that their parents knowledge is faulty and they must ask schools to help them shape a newer, more accurate world view.
For some, it lowered the age at which children start thinking their parents are clueless. :)
I actually learned very little about teaching in undergrad/graduate school. I recall the “kiddie math” professor pointing out some manipulatives on a shelf and telling us to play with them! No direction whatsoever.
In the early 2000s, I read an article in the local newspaper pertaining to a grant Auburn University had received to assist mathematics teachers. The program was called TEAM-Math or Transforming East Alabama Mathematics. When the funding expired, the program was absorbed into Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative (AMSTI).
At the time, I was employed as an adjunct faculty member at a local community college. I did this part-time so I could earn a little household income AND be home with our children who were 11, 9, and 1. However, I promised myself that when I returned to public schools, I was going to be a part of that program.
Lo and behold! in 2005, I began my dream job teaching 7th-grade math at a junior high school. There was an actual math department with four 7th-grade teachers and four 8th-grade teachers. Around October, the math chairman resigned from teaching. The principal asked me if I would take on that responsibility. I actually told him I would with one stipulation: our school would become a TEAM-Math school.
In order to be accepted ALL eight teachers were required to commit to two summers of two week training and meetings once each quarter on a Saturday morning. WE DID IT!!
I have been so blessed by this approach to teaching math because it is based on understanding the why of solving problems. And there are multiple entry points to problem solving. Some of my students initially need the concrete, relying on the hands-on use of manipulatives; others can draw pictorial representations; a few actually grasp the abstract and can use simple equations.
Every year, except one, since 2008, I have had a university intern with me for a semester. I know they have learned from me, but what I have learned from them is immeasurable. And when there is a training session during the summer, just like this summer, I attend enthusiastically.