A second-grade math work sheet. Credit Edmund D. Fountain for The New York Times
Posted on 06/30/2014 3:31:19 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
GREENWELL SPRINGS, La. — Rebekah and Kevin Nelams moved to their modest brick home in this suburb of Baton Rouge seven years ago because it has one of the top-performing public school districts in the state. But starting this fall, Ms. Nelams plans to home-school the couple’s four elementary-age children.
The main reason: the methods that are being used for teaching math under the Common Core, a set of academic standards adopted by more than 40 states.
Ms. Nelams said she did not recognize the approaches her children, ages 7 to 10, were being asked to use on math work sheets. They were frustrated by the pictures, dots and sheer number of steps needed to solve some problems. Her husband, who is a pipe designer for petroleum products at an engineering firm, once had to watch a YouTube video before he could help their fifth-grade son with his division homework.
“They say this is rigorous because it teaches them higher thinking,” Ms. Nelams said. “But it just looks tedious.”
Across the country, parents who once conceded that their homework expertise petered out by high school trigonometry are now feeling helpless when confronted with first-grade work sheets. Stoked by viral postings online that ridicule math homework in which students are asked to critique a phantom child’s thinking or engage in numerous steps, along with mockery from comedians including Louis C. K. and Stephen Colbert, these parents are adding to an increasingly fierce political debate about whether the Common Core is another way in which Washington is taking over people’s lives.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
A second-grade math work sheet. Credit Edmund D. Fountain for The New York Times
There is nothing wrong with the three questions I can see on that worksheet. And FYI I wasn’t taught multiplication or division until the third grade.
Are you assuming that all people have exactly ten fingers and two feet and all cars have four wheels?
What if Jonah has only nine fingers, and Emily has only one foot, and D’Shana has seven fingers on one hand and six on the other, and the principal, Herr Doktor Professor Mengle drives a three axle Mercedes, undt his wife, Frau Mengle the librarian, rides a BMW motorcycle with a sidecar?
It’s not the questions, it’s the way the kids are required to answer. Note that, on the answer sheet, the kids have to draw out the physical representation of the items present in order to “show their work”. So, for the “23 kids in the class” question, he can’t just write 23x10, the kid is expected to draw 23 sets of fingers. For the car question, the kid has to draw 6 sets of tires (what if one of the cars is a Morgan 3-wheeler or a Reliant Robin?).
Seriously? I thought those doodles were done by someone failing to get the idea.
I’ve seen a number of videos on Common Core that had students doing the math. Simple addition was so unnecessarily convoluted. So much more time than just simply adding. There was always something about the kids as they were doing it. Can’t quite put my finger on it. Just weird.
Yes.
The article links to a “study” on how kids learn math. Here are the authors:
JOHN D. BRANSFORD (Chair), College of Education, University of Washington
SUSAN CAREY, Department of Psychology, Harvard University
KIERAN EGAN, Department of Education, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada
SUZANNE WILSON, School of Education, Michigan State University
SAMUEL S. WINEBURG, Department of Education, Stanford University
Sure would be nice if they could squeeze someone with a MATH BACKGROUND into designing how kids should learn math.
One goal of Common Core is to allow success for students who CANNOT memorize math facts. They cannot memorize, but they can count.
The questions in that pic are easy, its the idiocy of the method that is screwy.
These techniques look like novel ways to add to traditional teaching to spice things up. But, since this is Government, everything is applied to everybody, too little time is allowed for transition, and no one is allowed to dissent.
We don’t need the Government mandating anything with our children. They need to defend us from enemies and leave everything else alone.
Nothing wrong? It makes a lot of assumptions as to the variables. Six cars in the parking lot. Are they four wheeled cars?
Instead of drawing six circles with four wheels each and then counting the wheels, what is wring with 6 times 4?
There are 25 students in the class. How many have suffered a lost finger or hand due to an accident? Instead of what looks like binary counting, what is wrong with 25 times 10?
God has already blessed their four children, now I am sure He will bless the parents for the love and care they are showing God's gifts to them.
ON June 12, 2018 legal registered voters in Maine will cast one ballot each, on that ballot will be a question on whether to secede from the union or not, it will also reference the Constitution that will go into effect immediately upon a successful secession vote.
This is the education section from that Constitution:
Section 7a. Education. All education is left to the local community, to the parents first and foremost and then to the city, town or community in which the family resides. The counties and the Republic are explicitly denied any role in a child's education with the exception of Militia members while on duty and prisoners while in the care of the county jail or prison of the Republic. The first and foremost responsibility to teach a child Religion, obedience, patriotism, loyalty, righteousness, and to be a productive member of society rest squarely upon the shoulders of the parent(s), the local communities role is to support and reinforce that parental responsibility.
I don’t believe in kids who can’t memorize. Math presents students with psychological barriers they don’t want to cross. It’s the teachers job to get then to cross those barriers.
I looked carefully at the Algebra 1 Common Core Math Test given in New York State and here’s what I found:
1) If you know traditional math, you will get 70% correct, probably enough to pass. Some of the problems, maybe 30%, are right out of traditional math books (i.e., the ones that aren’t published anymore in the US...but that’s another story), and the other 40% of this group are still traditional, but with some kind of a twist.
2) If you know the new-age nomenclature, like Cumulative, Associative, etc. properties, Range and Domain, etc. you can get another 15% correct.
3) You do have to know Common Core (i.e., total BS crap) for the final 15%, but it is doable.
4) Graphing calculators are REQUIRED for that examine, but EVERY PROBLEM can be done without one in a reasonable amount of time if you know traditional math. Think about it.
The bottom-line is that kids will do well even if just taught traditional math, with a small level of learning the new-age and Common Core stuff. They key is knowing the traditional math.
But here’s the problem, the VAST MAJORITY of parents EXPECT their kids to learn what is necessary in their schools - and for those parents, they will be VERY DISAPPOINTED as the whole point of Common Core is to somehow magically teach math without teaching any traditional skills.
...and the above applies to most FReeper Parents - you know who you are, and admit it, it’s much easier to just dump-off your kids in school, than to take on those schools by teaching your kids first, so your kids know the stuff before being “diagnosed” with a “learning disorder”.
What about the steering wheel?
That's RACIST!
So, I don’t get it. What concept is being taught by drawing little circles with dots inside? Do you then count to get the answer? It seems to me that this has nothing to do with thinking critically.
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