Posted on 10/06/2014 1:47:52 PM PDT by therightliveswithus
Imagine a teacher asks you to solve this question: 568-293. Depending on your age you might do one of three things...
...Third, you might use the new common core was to subtract, which is much simpler, with only... 10 steps.
First, you would take the 200 out of the 293, and save the 93 for later. Then you would take 568 and subtract 200 from it. Then you'd take the remaining 368 and you would subtract 60 from it, because you are taught that, for some reason, you cannot simply subtract 90 from 368. 368-60 equals 308. Then you subtract 30 from 308 because, again, for some reason 368-90 doesn't exist. 308-30 equals 278. Then you take the three that is left over from 293-290, because you already subtracted 200, 60, and 30 from 293 to get three, and you minus that 3 from the remaining 278 that you got from subtracting 290 from 568. Still following? Good, because one you minus 3 from 278, you get the answer of 275! Then, you double check your answer by adding up 200 + 60 + 30 + 3 to get 293, which is the number you subtracted from 568. Much, much more complicated than the other two methods and an over-complification of a simple problem. More than that, the way to figure out this problem is literally more than the other two methods combined.
This is an actual common core problem which, hilariously, tries to tell students its a mere three steps:
(Excerpt) Read more at thepunditpress.com ...
Yeah...this has been going on “to a degree” for a long time. I had a grade school math teacher who taught us some shortcuts...+ I helped out my Dad as a kid when he was doing carpentry and he did a lot of stuff in his head.
When I took Algebra as a freshman in High School I was always getting marked down because I got the answer right but didn’t show my work with the correct “method”. I got fed up and didn’t take any higher math after that in H.S. Therefore, I wasn’t eligible to be on the H.S. Math Team.
When the ACT College entrance exam rolled around I blew everyone on the Math team out of the water.
Two stepmethod
subtract 300 add 7.
You don’t think these they WANT are shortcuts, do you?? I think they want the kids to be frustrated!
Yeah...My Daughter (who has a college degree in English) “teaches” at an advanced pre-school (glorified kindergarten). But she is just getting started and will move up the ladder, grade-wise. One day I was at an old antique shop in the Mtns of North Georgia and noticed they had some old “readers”. I wanted a 1st grade one but all they had was a second grade one so I bought it for her (it was really old).
I couldn’t help thumbing through it and I was stunned. They were learning how to diagram sentences in the second grade...I mean seriously. I thought back to my second grade class in a rural school and I guess we were doing that too (in 1964) but I didn’t think they would be that advanced in the late 1800s.
...and as far as penmanship...don’t get me started.
Using “old math”, do it in your head in two steps:
1. 568 is 268 more than 300.
2. add 7 to 268, and you get 275. (300 is 7 more than 293.)
-PJ
Another reason to home school. Communist Core is anti American.
I don't know if it's intentional but you are dead on about the result. My third grader pulls out this sort of overly complicated baloney and I say "no no no, it's actually easy if you just...." and she cuts me off, tells me she's not allowed to do it that way and the teacher will know because she has to show her work. Then she cries because she can't figure it out and says she's a failure.
>>I figured out that 293 was 7 short of 300, so I took 300 away from the bigger number and then added 7 back in.<<
That’s what I did too.
[ They are trying to avoid “borrowing”.
The concept of borrowing confuses some kids.
But it actually makes things more difficult if they don’t tackle these concepts head-on. ]
If they don’t teach the kids the concept of “borrowing” they will apply for credit cards as adults with no idea of the consequence and they will become a 2nd class “debt slave” citizen...
Seriously, it is like the government and some big corporations want to raise a nation of farm-able cattle and not free thinking intelligent FREE people.
[ I was helping my son with his Common Core math homework the other day. The topic was mean (average), median (middle element in a set) and mode (the most frequently occurring element in a set).
The last question read something on the lines of “The term (mean, median, mode) best describes the following: 1,1,3,5,7,7,12.”
I sent the teacher a note saying the question was absolute gibberish. None of those terms can describe a set. They each can describe a particular property of the set (i.e., the mean would be approx. 5.1, the median would be 5, and the modes would be 1 and 7), but the terms cannot describe the set.
The teacher agreed with me, and just gave all students a correct answer on the question regardless of what answer they gave. ]
some of the common core stuff is “Math Theory”, which is fine but math is one of those few things where it is better for you to learn the HOW before you learn the WHY.
My worst grades were in penmanship. I can’t even read my printing.
“I even tried again as an adult, but got completely lost when it got to sines. Fortunately 99% of people never actually need to know algebra in their adult lives.”
Sines are part of Trig not Algebra, maybe that contributed to the problem.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.