I'm late the party on this core curriculum stuff..

odusgolp

I'm trying to help my son with his 2nd grade stuff, and I can't. I can't do 2nd grade common core math. Neither can he, he asked for a calculator and cried when we said no. After trying to explain for 30 minutes I said "f**k it" and showed him how to "carry the 1." 3 pages of addition homework done in 5 minutes.

Maybe common core works, but I still don't get it. I feel sorry for my sons teacher becuase I know she's not a fan, and neither is the schools pricipal, but at a public school they don't have much choice in the matter.

This is the ENTIRE problem with this ****.

rml_16

As a Mechanical Engineer this makes me cry and worry for our children's future.. I'd love to see a Calculus (or even Trigonometry) equation solved using the common core methodology.

It's just the transitive property of equality applied to learning. I have taken a lot of higher end math courses and any time you are trying to prove theorems, being able to work backward from what you are trying to prove is very valuable. This is teaching kids how to reason through a problem rather than teaching them to memorize tables. It may not be immediately obvious as to why this could be useful, but as you get to higher levels of math, tables and memorization don't count for ****. Kids need to be able to reason from point A to point B to be successful at math.

Except that I learned the old way and I can still do this. It isn't necessary to learn math the way it's being taught with Common Core in order to get to that point. And, actually, isn't that what algebra is? I started learning that in fifth grade and did just fine. But I had to have that foundation -- KNOWING that 5+2=7 -- before I could grasp the higher-level, backwards algebra. Kids aren't getting that foundation.

_errata_

As a Mechanical Engineer this makes me cry and worry for our children's future.. I'd love to see a Calculus (or even Trigonometry) equation solved using the common core methodology.

It's just the transitive property of equality applied to learning. I have taken a lot of higher end math courses and any time you are trying to prove theorems, being able to work backward from what you are trying to prove is very valuable. This is teaching kids how to reason through a problem rather than teaching them to memorize tables. It may not be immediately obvious as to why this could be useful, but as you get to higher levels of math, tables and memorization don't count for ****. Kids need to be able to reason from point A to point B to be successful at math.

Except that I learned the old way and I can still do this. It isn't necessary to learn math the way it's being taught with Common Core in order to get to that point. And, actually, isn't that what algebra is? I started learning that in fifth grade and did just fine. But I had to have that foundation -- KNOWING that 5+2=7 -- before I could grasp the higher-level, backwards algebra. Kids aren't getting that foundation.

You just explained the motivation for doing it. This is helping kids learn the reasoning skills to do algebra. Sure, this seems silly because it is basic arithmetic, but when you start adding in variables... tables and memorization aren't going to help a kid. The program, while very unpopular, is based on very large scientific studies and international standards of countries that perform better than the US.

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_John_

The problem that lead to this thread was a word problem asking a student to show how to get 10 out of 5+8.

Who gives a shit?

rml_16

As a Mechanical Engineer this makes me cry and worry for our children's future.. I'd love to see a Calculus (or even Trigonometry) equation solved using the common core methodology.

It's just the transitive property of equality applied to learning. I have taken a lot of higher end math courses and any time you are trying to prove theorems, being able to work backward from what you are trying to prove is very valuable. This is teaching kids how to reason through a problem rather than teaching them to memorize tables. It may not be immediately obvious as to why this could be useful, but as you get to higher levels of math, tables and memorization don't count for ****. Kids need to be able to reason from point A to point B to be successful at math.

Except that I learned the old way and I can still do this. It isn't necessary to learn math the way it's being taught with Common Core in order to get to that point. And, actually, isn't that what algebra is? I started learning that in fifth grade and did just fine. But I had to have that foundation -- KNOWING that 5+2=7 -- before I could grasp the higher-level, backwards algebra. Kids aren't getting that foundation.

You just explained the motivation for doing it. This is helping kids learn the reasoning skills to do algebra. Sure, this seems silly because it is basic arithmetic, but when you start adding in variables... tables and memorization aren't going to help a kid. The program, while very unpopular, is based on very large scientific studies and international standards of countries that perform better than the US.

But what I'm saying is that I understood this concept and was able to do it even without Common Core learning.

I didn't struggle with math until I got into geometry, which my brain just won't accept no matter what. My father is a mathematical genius and a teacher and he couldn't get me to understand it. But I can do algebra no problem and I excelled at math right up until 10th grade.