[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.

[FredZarguna]

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

Maybe you can't communicate with FReepers because you're a condescending, insulting jerk, who thinks a lot more of himself than he should, and you're being put in your place for it.

I've forgotten more math in one day than you've learned in your entire life. The chance that there is any math that you know -- and could teach this FReeper pig is vanishingly small. [I know, I know, your "super sophisticated math brain" doesn't grasp the concept of limits. Here's how it works: For every epsilon greater than zero, the chance that you know more math than I do is less than that.]