Disgusting.
I used to have my multiplication tables (through 12) memorized to the point that a teacher could stop the class, propose a multiplication problem, and I wouldn't need to write or think. It was automatic.
Same went for spelling tests and vocabulary.
Rote memorization was the cornerstone of my upbringing and my education, and it's still the cornerstone of education in countries like India and China where they are kicking our collective scholastic asses across the globe.
This country is lost.
My kids had a 4th grade teacher in CA (in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s) who used to teach the times tables by memory. BUT the parents of the kids in her classes were sworn to secrecy about the practice because she swore that she would be fired if the administration found out what she was doing.
She was about 5 years from retirement.
Have you ever seen a parent in a store on one knee lecturing his/her 2 year old about “why it’s not okay to pillage the aisles”? The attempt to reason with the unreasoning, where basic cognitive functions aren’t in place yet reeks of overreach and a failure to understand what the mind is/is not capable of performing at the different stages of development. It’s the same idea with education. Somehow libs got it in their heads that children 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, are reasoning creatures and need to be “taught” using more advanced methods to address their “innate higher learning abilities.”
Truth is, education today fails to lay the proper foundation for learning and, thus, doom their young charges to a lifetime of either a) head scratching or b) smugness about why things they don’t know/can’t do are unimportant.
Not having to memorize times tables/ core curriculum:
For the moment, we’ll look at the third factor, because of the other seemingly endless debate (in addition to calculators): times tables memorization. We’re going to try to end this silly debate once and for all (ha!). There is sufficient rationale for knowing one’s times tables: even at the highest levels of mathematics, there comes a time that two numbers must be multiplied. But beyond its obvious utility, there is greater depth to the times tables than just memorization. There are important patterns inherent in the times tables that can lead to a deeper understanding of the nature of numbers and ultimately, lead to more profound problem solving and abstract abilities. The times tables can play a central role in fostering some fairly advanced mathematical thinking, even in elementary school —Once again, there are problems with the Common Core starting at the very beginning of its treatment of a topic: how it introduces the concept. CCSSI begins a piecemeal approach to multiplication in 2.OA.4:
“Use addition to find the total number of objects arranged in rectangular arrays with up to 5 rows and up to 5 columns; write an equation to express the total as a sum of equal addends.”
Without saying as much, this is repeated addition. Certainly that’s how one begins, but then what? Following CCSSI, students will spend an entire summer after second grade thinking that 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 20, and so what? It is both ridiculous and demeaning to leave students hanging with repeated addition as the way to total an array.
Instead, finding the total number of objects in an array by repeated addition should culminate in an introduction to multiplication as a shorthand notation. There’s no rhyme or reason for separating these two concepts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/a-critical-analysis-of-common-core-math-standards/2012/09/18/1584fd0c-f6b4-11e1-8253-3f495ae70650_blog.html