” I understand, or at least I think I do, what NCTM were about. Most math teachers are rather good at math, like it, always have liked it and learned their much of what they know though self-discovery. They ignore the fact that most humans don’t have a knack or talent for math, don’t particularly enjoy it and see math as a tool to use to get things done.”
The reason we keep GETTING DEFEATED is very simple - we assign ‘good intentions’ to the people who hate us, and hate the country.
There is literally NO PROBLEM with Modern Math, or Everyday Math, as far as the teachers are concerned - they are getting EXACTLY what they intended from these programs - which is the end of a country they despise.
Most math teachers in K12 don’t have true math degrees. They usually have a Math Ed degree which might mean that set through a ‘Calculus for Poets’ class.
“...we assign ‘good intentions’ to the people who hate us, and hate the country.”
I still sub at the school I used to teach at. When I show the kids how I learned division (this was to 5th-grade kids—long division was expected to be mastered by the end of 4th grade when I was in school) the kids go, “Oh, that’s so easy!” or, “that’s how my dad tried to teach me”.
If you haven’t experienced ‘common core’ math, multiplication involves filling in tiny squares with numbers making a problem that should take 15 seconds to solve into a 10-minute art exercise.
And then there’s the jaggedness of it. New concepts that have nothing to do with one another are introduced each month. Mastering skills doesn’t happen. Believe it or not, first graders are introduced to fractions before they can reliably add.
What I can say is that my teachers in the 50s and 60s gave me a better education than what most kids today receive.