Teacher's answer to Common Core math problem has parents steaming

sheknows ^ | 10/27/2015 | Christine McDow

[BlackFemaleArmyColonel]

A new trend in math at elementary schools around the country has parents pulling out their hair. Mainly because it is the opposite of how most of today's adults were taught to do simple multiplication in the first place.

According to a Common Core math worksheet that's gone viral, an elementary child today cannot just say, "5 x 3 = 15." Instead they have to change the multiplication problem to addition before solving the equation. However, if the child says, "5 + 5 + 5 = 15," they will still lose points because the problem must be written as it is stated. In this case, "five times three" is really stated as "five groups of three," and has to be written as such: "3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 15."

This concept has left many parents shaking their heads and throwing their hands up in despair because they can't figure out what it is that their child is supposed to do. Why do you have to add instead of multiply, and why do you have to add the second number five times instead of the first number three times? The biggest question is: "Does it even matter?"

[Vic S]

Jan is 48 and Jake is 24?

[Tau Food]

I think both sides need to understand that if a person does not recognize that 5x3 = 3x5, then he/she doesn't understand enough yet. I would want a student to understand that 3+3+3+3+3 = 5+5+5 and to understand why. Anything short of that is a failure to understand a basic principle. There is no cause for a debate about which analysis is better when it is vital that the student understand both analyses and understand why it doesn't matter which is approach utilized.

My memory is that we were taught this principle as the commutative property of multiplication.

[rrrod]

Public school teachers union.....the most vile people in the entire country.

[ETL]

"Jan is 48 and Jake is 24?"

Yes.

a + 2a = 5a - 48

3a = 5a - 48

5a - 3a = 48

2a = 48

a = 24

[Axelsrd]

Every student should have to learn how to use a slide rule

[grania]

Ahhh....the common sense of our uneducated ancestors. My mom and dad never finished HS. I was diagnosed as really, really good in math. So, there came the day when I proudly brought home my Algebra 1 book to show mom.

She looked at the paper, said "what is that -----? (she swore a lot) I told her. She took that book and could open it to any page and give the answers without all that "crazy stuff" I was writing down!

Maybe our anecdotes have a lot of what's wrong with common core involved in them. Nobody's learning to do things by common sense and experience. They're taking the mystery, discovery and feeling of accomplishment out of learning.

Then there's the "error is not permitted" mentality. Some of civilization's very best ideas and discoveries started out with things that went wrong. They got turned into something great with a little twisting and turning and observing. Creative Thinking is gone.

[Ohioan]

What is going on is basically this: Mentally dysfunctional theorists are trying to sound relevant--maybe even pretending to what I call "pseudo profundity"--by seeming to reinvent concepts that were once simple and direct (that is actually functional).

The mistake parents make is in trying to imagine a way that this patent silliness is relevant to anything of practical benefit to anyone.

Of course, parents are upset that their children's pursuit of both knowledge & methodology is being derailed by functional idiots' efforts to "reinvent the wheel"; or in this context, to turn simple math into a completely counter-productive drill. As difficult as it may be, they (the parents) need to fall back on their sense of humor, and turn complete folly into a useful lesson, to explain to their children how truly counter-productive it is when theorists in Government pour figurative sand into the basic machinery of life.

[combat_boots]

Actually, IT is being outsourced. H1B the L1 visas. Wives of H1Bs and L1s. Not just Indians. Communist Chinese....working in their own countries, too.

I’m sure you know that, though.

My point is that without advanced math skills, no American will be able to work at H&R Block, let alone accounting, physics, chem, medicine.....

I suppose there’ll always be a ‘close enough for’ government work job. Those people can always estimate troop strength....rations needed....deaths of the elderly...dosages of prescriptions required for 0bamacare.

[JayAr36]

Teacher’s answer to Common Core math problem has parents steaming.

I don’t know why. Haven’t these indoctrinaters managed to reduce us to educational third world status.

[DungeonMaster]

Home school your kids.

[KYGrandma]

This makes me glad my grandchildren are being educated in the International Schools. They are learning what we did back in the 60’s. Even cursive. They are currently in China.

[BlackFemaleArmyColonel]

Yes!

[Marie]

The concept of multiplication was pretty easy for my kids to pick up. Then we spent a month memorizing the table. By the time we moved on to division, they knew multiplication ‘forward and backward’ and they were very happy to realize that they already knew division.

After that, we moved on with Saxon math.

Done and done. Both kids excelled in the subject.

[BlackFemaleArmyColonel]

Wow!

[RinaseaofDs]

Saxon - Drill’em and Kill’em

[Ohioan]

The notion--and never make the mistake that it is ever better than a notion--that equality of achievement is a noble or altruistic goal; the notion that drives egalitarian/collectivist movements, is based on compulsion, not reason. It undermines all peoples afflicted by it, by diverting their efforts from what they do well, to avoiding reality.

Communism is always the glorification of what does not work. It is always sold by appeals to the neurotic compulsions, which drive the "useful idiots." (See Compassion or Compulsion?.

[BlackFemaleArmyColonel]

Great for them!

[BlackFemaleArmyColonel]

It is intentional and they don’t teach our history anymore.

Maybe people are ashamed of our history???

[BlackFemaleArmyColonel]

What’s the answer? I think I solved it.

[BlackFemaleArmyColonel]

lol