College Students Learn Common Core Math (video)

conservativevideos ^

[chessplayer]

College students and others at George Mason University were dumbstruck by the tedious nature of an elementary level Common Core problem during a short series of interviews conducted by Campus Reform last week. The problem, 32-12, was demonstrated to those on campus the traditional way and juxtaposed with the Common Core method.

[goodnesswins]

Now...try analyzing a government budget with common core math!!!

[IMR 4350]

Thanks.

I’ve been scratching my head over something that happened at Wal Mart last week.

My bill came to $11.38, I gave the girl a $10 and 2 $1’s.

She handed me my receipt and no change.

She couldn’t even enter the correct amount I gave her into her register and let the register figure out how much change was due.

She had no concept of how to count change.

I had to tell her she owed me $.62.

[Hoodat]

That is awesome.

[Hoodat]

Can’t do 6th grade math and you’re an honor student in 11th grade? WTF!

She may not be able to do 6th grade math, but I can guarantee you she will know how to vote Democrat for the remainder of her life.

[Balding_Eagle]

How did she get the register to open so she could get to the change?

[Hoodat]

Yeah, but What’s the name of the first baseman?

[MarDav]

I briefly worked at a roadside hot dog and burger joint called Callahan’s Road Stand in New Jersey (Joisy). Employees stood inside what amounted to a horseshoe-type counter area with customers crammed in on all sides calling out their orders - 2 cheeseburgers, 1 with onions, 3 dogs, fries, 3 cokes - 2 large, 1 small, etc. Employees were expected EXPECTED to be able to “ring all this up” in their heads, take the correct money and return the correct change. All employees rang up their sales (just the total) on a single cash register. It was fast, fast fast and the lunch rush could last up to 2 - 2 1/2 hours.

No sweat...

[Hoodat]

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.

[Monitor]

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.

[Principled]

The “tin foil” stuff is when people think common core math is an evil plot to destroy youth.

The examples are just examples... often contrived to illustrate a concept. They are not “the new method”.

[Monitor]

Yes, I was a cashier before digital cash registers that tell the cashier how much change to give. That is how we calculated the change. And I was shown the method when I got my job. No need to mess w/regular math.

Thank you, Debbie. I was beginning to wonder if my memories of how change was made was a dream, as it doesn't seem any FReepers beyond you and I remember it.

[GreyFriar]

Back in the late 60s the ‘new math’ was introduced. my 4 year older cousin was teaching it and tried to explain it to me, I was in college working on my history degree. My comment to her was: “you are trying to teach advanced math theory to elementary school kids before they know how to do basic addition, subtraction, division and multiplication.” She said yes, “we must do this so that we get them fully trained to be future math experts.” my reply was ‘Your philosophy is wrong on this, you are putting the cart (Descarte) before the horse”

[IMR 4350]

She just pushed a button.

You can open a register at any time, otherwise you couldn’t change checkers without having a sale.

If I was to take a guess as to why they are teaching math this way it’s a step to doing away with change.

Just round it off for the customer paying but the store would have to keep a record of the exact amount and the difference would go to the govt in the form of a sales tax.

If it’s done in steps say do away with the penny first.

Then do away with the nickel., dime, quarter, fifty cent, then eventually do away with the $1.

[Thank You Rush]

“”I don’t know what common core is trying to do. I have yet to actually see a common core workbook. My only exposure to it has been here, on FR, where it’s taken out of context.””

Google Common Core Math and you’ll be inundated with more problems and their way of solving them than you possibly have time for. Don’t depend on FR - there is lots of info available. I’ve spent a lot of time on different sites and the samples just keep getting worse and more ridiculous.

[Thank You Rush]

The best one yet and actually part of a Common Core exercise is this one:

A girl wanted to give her friends stickers. She wanted to give each one an equal number. How many batches of stickers does the girl have to buy so she doesn’t have any left over?

I think this should be answered by Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, Jeb Bush and all the other idiots who think Common Core is the greatest thing since sliced bread!!

[Vince Ferrer]

Yeah, but What’s the name of the first baseman?

What's on second.

[zot]

Simple arithmetic isn’t politically correct.

[jpsb]

Fractions are quite useful things in math. And fractions are where a lot of folks lose interest in math. But fractions are really easy if you just remember a few simple rules.

1) to add or subtract, find the common denominator cross multiply
2) to multiply, top times top and bottom times bottom
3) to divide, invert (swap out top/bottom of one fraction) then multiple
4) remember a whole number is really a fraction, the number divided by 1 ergo 1/2/3 is really 1/2 divided by 3/1

If I wanted to express 1 divided by 2/3 then I would write 1/(2/3)

[Moltke]

To paraphrase John Wayne: “Math is hard. It’s harder when you’re doing it stupidly.”

[mware]

Believe me the math teachers at the school where I teach are total frustrated with Common Core. Even our top mathematics students are baffled by this system.