Posted on 03/07/2014 4:05:39 AM PST by ilovesarah2012
Yet another painfully awful Common Core math worksheet has bubbled up courtesy of Twitter.
This time, the math is for fourth graders, according to Twitchy.
The incomprehensible directions tell the poor nine-year-old souls forced to endure the worksheet to “use number bonds to help you skip-count by seven by making ten or adding to the ones.”
At the top left corner of the worksheet are the all-capitalized words “NYS COMMON CORE MATHEMATICS CURRICULUM.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
I seriously don’t see a problem with this.
I’m an engineer, and I take math shortcuts like this all the time.
For instance, what’s 29 + 39?
(Borrow one from 29 to give to the 39)
It’s now 28 + 40, or 68.
What’s 13 x 13?
Its 13 x 10 + 13 x 3.
So, 130 + 39, or 169.
This is why people like me can split up a check in my head while the rest of you are hunting for a calculator.
If Common Core is bad, then fine it’s bad. But it’s not bad because of math problems like this example. It seems as though “Common Core” has become the right wing’s “Squirrel!”
I was thinking more in terms of “friends in high places”.
haha, just Greek for us old-schoolers. The new kids won’t know foreign languages either.
It’s ok to take shortcuts, when you understand the problem. That’s why you are able to take the shortcuts and get the proper answer.
However, Common Core is trying to teach those short cuts before the kids have mastered the material. It’s the same reason why kids literacy rates are lower from a generation ago, they were taught to memorize words with no understanding of the phonetics behind those words.
Yes. It is gibberish.
It's also not bad simply because it is universally required. What makes it bad is that the freedom to improve it has been eliminated in favor of allowing the GOVERNMENT to control its content.
Tolerance for getting the wrong answer if the proper procedure is used misses the point completely; that is, to get the right answer.
Please present evidence that the workbook in question did not, in an earlier lesson, teach a kid how to add 7 to 7 directly. If you have no such evidence, then you have no argument.
The other day some moron scribbled a bunch of numbers on a piece of paper, took a picture of it, and posted it to FR as an example of Commie-core, and the predictable outrage began. I find it disturbing that so many people on FR can be so easily and willfully be duped into a 2-minute hatefest.
How many fingers do you see Winston?
I suppose I could see 4, but yes, yes, I see how there could be 5.
How many fingers do you see Winston?
How many do you want me to see?
I pity the Children. I’m glad I never had any of my own.
7 + 7 = 7 + (3 + 4)
= (7 + 3) + 4
= 10 + 4
= 14
What I don't get is, why? I don't see what value is added to teaching arithmetic. It's a lot simpler, isn't it, to just explain why you have to carry a one into the tens column. Maybe I'm missing something?
I learned this week that my third-grade teacher has passed away. It was in her class that we learned to add multiple columns, and also memorized our multiplication tables up to 12x12.
Unless 1984 is on the Common Core reading list, your straw man argument is irrelevant to Common Core.
Maybe not if you're trying to do it in your head. So, you memorized all the way up to 13 x 13. What's 14 x 15?
Here's how I would do it.
14 x 15 = (10 x 15) + (4 x 15) = 150 + 60 = 210.
Or, taking the lesson to it's absurd extreme, maybe it's 150 + 50 + 10 = 200 + 10 = 210.
You want to multiply five times 4, is 20, so zero, carry the 2.
Five times 1 is 5, plus the 2, is 7. That makes 70.
Ten times 14 is is 140, plus 70 is 210.
Same answer, but I'd much rather do it using 10s, 20s, 100s, etc, which is obviously the point of this exercise. Being able to do math in your head, beyond what you've managed to memorize, is a damned good skill to teach kids.
I don’t think referring to 1984 in regards to Common Core is a straw man. The curse of fuzzy math is upon us. If the student ‘thinks’ they got the correct answer, the student is awarded a gold start for thinking they got the right answer. How many fingers do you see? How many oranges do you have is there are 2 in one hand and 2 in the other? How many do you think you have? Sure, teachers aren’t dumping rats on their heads, yet, and telling them how many oranges there are, but who woulda thought it was so close now.
14 x 15 = 7 x 30 = 210.
One step, extrapolating from what I learned by rote when I was 8.
Adding 7 to anything is probably grade 2 math. If they are breaking up the 7 to show how parts of the 7 works to add to numbers, they are teaching the principle in grade 2, which would be too early to learn that mathematical principle.
Adding 7 to anything should be a point of rote, imo.
My wife for all the years of math and my kid’s school would do “math facts” in the hall with another mom - 6-7 years I suppose.
The teachers weren’t allowed to do the facts (flashcards), so my wife and the other gal would spend an hour each day in the hallway testing all the kids, giving them more flashcards when they passed the levels, etc. Adding, Subtracting, Multiplying and Division as they moved up to sixth grade.
The teachers loved it, and so did the principal. Not sure what would have happened if anyone called them on it; whether the principal would have stuck up for them or not.
Not sure if I can scronge through some old math papers, but my kids were forced to learn adding stuff like this right away.
I had to go into the teacher to get it explained to me so I could help my kids! They did not start with the basics, and as I posted earlier, it was/is(?) against the rules to do “math facts”
The idea of adding 13 + 18 was not taught as a 3+8, carry the one problem AT ALL.
It was taught as 13-3 = 10.
18+2 = 20, so 10 + 20 = 30. But, you need to add in the 3 that you subtracted from the 13, so that is 33. AND, you need to subtract the 2 that you added to the 18 - so 33-2 = 31. Any they would have to show their work on that for each and every problem.
I told my kids at the time that that is how I would sometimes add numbers in my head, and that it has merit, but to look at every problem like this was nuts. Especially when lots/most of the kids didn’t have their basic math facts.
Interestingly, my one daughter did fine with the common-core way and terrible at first with straight math. My other daughter was vice-versa. She would answer the 13+18 problem using “regular” math and would get marked down. I told her and her teacher that as long as she got the correct answer that was okay with us. The teacher still marked it wrong because she didn’t do it the “right” way. Oh well, her bad grade in 4th grade probably won’t come back to haunt her.
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