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I am a sort of an arithmetic savant in certain ways. I went completely through high school with straight A's in math never studying or opening a math book one day in my life. I wrote all the geometric proofs in 9th and 10th grade without even pausing. I just "knew" the answers. However, later I struggled with higher math like calculus became a more average performer in college, but I never lost my gift of arithmetic and can add, subtract, multiply and even do some division all in my head. I never paid much attention to the formal techniques my classmates were relying on during my formative years. My math performance was based on a natural understanding of numbers.

I can understand the common core math methods instantly when they are presented as I sort of use many of these techniques "naturally" in my head. Others I see as perfectly logical, but with too many steps. There's a Allen West FACEBOOK post going around about 427-316 = 111 that no one seems to understand, but I easily see what's being done. I also understand the common core version of 32-12 problem discussed on this post as well, although it seems ridiculously complex.

So here's the question. Can a natural understanding of numbers that someone like myself possesses be "taught" through the application of these complex techniques? If the answer is yes, then I would be prone to support common core math. But if the answer is "not so much", then can these complex techniques, when combined with a post-modern approach of minimizing the importance of getting the right answer, serve the larger society?

I believe that what most people need is a way to deal with math, and the straight forward techniques of column-based addition, subtraction, multiplication and division have served generations of people extremely well.

and the straight forward techniques of column-based addition, subtraction, multiplication and division have served generations of people extremely well.

I have mystified some Gen Y's and Z's doing columnar addition and subtraction. If you really want to blow their minds, do long division. They think you're preforming voodoo.

What I find to be insidious is not the particular method in itself, but rather the fact that teachers will be required to use it on a national level. Let teachers have the freedom to use what works for their individual students. Common Core has a lot in common with Obamacare. It’s a top down, command and control, one-size fits none system that will not elicit the best from our kids.

Educated people can't understand the reason we have common core. It was sold to educators (who need more education) as a way to get around white privilege and help minorities learn faster than their white brethren. Counting change dollars is portrayed as how minorities learn best and common core seeks to confuse the white establishment while at the same time elevating the minority mind.

The only way to get around the politicization of mathematics is to get your kids out of government run education camps and into real schools.

However, later I struggled with higher math like calculus became a more average performer in college

I understand completely. I was the same way. Arithmetic never lies to you. Algebra never lies to you. Linear algebra never lies to you. But Calculus? The first thing they teach you is that you are trying to get close to a point yet never get there. What the heck? And then there's differential equations where they tell you not to find the answer, but to find the question.

I managed to get through it, but it went against everything I knew about the purity of math. Yet without the foundation of algebra, the rest would have been impossible, especially with DiffEQ. 99% of the errors are basic math errors (e.g. not carrying a negative sign).

The point here is that our minds work in unique ways. I've seen a guy who can square 5-digit numbers in his head. Can I be taught to do it like he does it? Absolutely not. My mind doesn't work like his does. Yet I have a unique way of counting in number sets that does not work for other people. And if I want to multiply 96 x 104, I square 100 and subtract 4-squared. This is how my brain is wired and may not be how others process things. I think what someone has done here with this common core crap is to take one person's unique way of solving problems and making everyone else do the same thing.

I am a sort of an arithmetic savant in certain ways. I went completely through high school with straight A's in math never studying or opening a math book one day in my life. I wrote all the geometric proofs in 9th and 10th grade without even pausing. I just "knew" the answers. However, later I struggled with higher math like calculus became a more average performer in college, but I never lost my gift of arithmetic and can add, subtract, multiply and even do some division all in my head. I never paid much attention to the formal techniques my classmates were relying on during my formative years. My math performance was based on a natural understanding of numbers.

I was blessed with the same natural understanding of math.

I can understand the common core math methods instantly when they are presented as I sort of use many of these techniques "naturally" in my head. Others I see as perfectly logical, but with too many steps. There's a Allen West FACEBOOK post going around about 427-316 = 111 that no one seems to understand, but I easily see what's being done. I also understand the common core version of 32-12 problem discussed on this post as well, although it seems ridiculously complex.

Ah, so you, like me, must be a long-haired tree-hugging hippie-freak commie-pinko hell bent on dumbing down America's students! /sarc

So here's the question. Can a natural understanding of numbers that someone like myself possesses be "taught" through the application of these complex techniques? If the answer is yes, then I would be prone to support common core math. But if the answer is "not so much", then can these complex techniques, when combined with a post-modern approach of minimizing the importance of getting the right answer, serve the larger society?

I don't know. I mean, look at all the posts to me by people who cannot see past why I'd put down $30 for a $12 item to see the point I was trying to make? I cannot reach people on FR without being accused of some nefarious motives. How many people on FR who have seen this example of common core math problem solving and just assume that the basics of math are not also being taught?

Never try to teach a ~~pig~~ FReeper ~~to sing~~ math; it wastes your time and it annoys the ~~pig~~ FReeper.

I believe that what most people need is a way to deal with math, and the straight forward techniques of column-based addition, subtraction, multiplication and division have served generations of people extremely well.

I agree entirely. Any math I cannot do in my head by using the tricks that came naturally to me (which I now see being taught in common core math), I do using columns and long division.

Your mistake is in believing that you have a "natural" understanding of math. You don't. You have an idiosyncratic way of understanding it, and as your own example shows, it was not superior to the formalism learned by your peers.

The elementary operations of arithmetic, like the ordinary digital operations of our feet and hands can -- and should -- be reduced to sub-cortical processes at an early age, so that they can be applied to difficult conceptual problems without effort.

The Common Core arithmetic approach is like trying to teach people to use a computer who don't know how to type. They focus so much on finding the letters on the keyboard that their conceptual path through accomplishing a task is quickly lost in details that aren't really part of the problem domain. It's not really necessary that everyone learn to touch type, just that they know where the letters are without thinking.

Conceptual and mental arithmetic can always be returned to at a later phase without any danger that the student will be so mired in methodology that he won't be able to grasp concepts; in fact the connection will be easier, as your peers who could easily learn advanced mathematics while you struggled with it proves.

Common Core is just the latest phase in a disastrous educationist program that has been going on since the catastrophe called "New Math" was introduced in 1963. Each time the approach of teaching math concepts before formalism and drill has been tried it has been abandoned in favor of the traditional method. Each time the educationists refuse to understand that they really do not understand how people learn math. After each failure they regroup and introduce a New-New Math that is even sillier than before. The sad fact is that most educationists are mathematically innumerate, and therefore unqualified to teach the subject -- even to children -- themselves.