Let me break it down as a SPED teacher for a decade.
"common core" math is based a lot around the mental short cuts people really good with math use in higher level math. But they're ways of approaching math that you use AFTER you become very good at mastering the algorithmic basics.
You don't teach this shit first.
You make them master the basic algorithms first. And if they have a knack for math, they will develop some of these in their own.
This is all done under the idiotic assumption that "people good with math do math this way, so well yeah it this way." Same dumbass assumption of good writers write a lot. So we'll have kids write slot to be good writers.
My niece who is in 4th grade was showing me her math homework . A long division problem that did not have a remainder. I was able to look at it and determine that answer pretty easily. She showed me the amount of work she is required to do to solve that problem and I was floored. Not even kidding when I say a problem like 425/5 took her 2 pages to complete because that's how common core wants her to do it.
As an adult if you asked me to multiply 257 by 3 in my head I'd think ok 200x3 = 600, 50x2= 150, 7x3 = 21 add together = 771
Or 250x3=750 + 7x3=21=771
They want kids to do this instead of learning and mastering the standard algorithm 1st. At face value it's not a bad thing from an adult perspective until you delve into the asinine and arbitrary ways CC wants the kids to go about it. Like thinking in terms of how many 10s are in each of these etc etc
It's all an exercise in cart before the horse. Teach the algorithm first. Master that and then work on teaching the mental short cuts later.
Don't even get me started in teaching what used to be 8th grade topics in 5th and 4th. Kids brains aren't capable of true abstract thinking until at least 11yo and yet here we are trying to foist abstract concepts like algebra in them as young as 3rd and 4th.
As a high school student who just graduated near the top of their class, I can confirm this. Math is no longer about reasoning and critical thinking; it's about memorizing algorithms.
"Here are the problems which will be on the test, just with different numbers. Memorize algorithmically how to solve each one."
Students are given lists of formulas without an intuitive explanation for WHY they work. Naturally, the kids at the top of their class are best at "going through the system" and memorizing everything their teachers tell them. In reality, they're clueless without the system telling them precisely what they need to know.
I find these kids completely intolerable. They can't think for themselves and believe all the leftist garbage their history/english teachers tell them.
algorithmic knowledge is becoming less and less important as computers take over in that area.
The one thing humans have which computers don't is the ability to creatively and intuitively think and CREATE solutions. You can't write a program using brute memorization.
Learning algorithms is only useful nowadays as an example for how other algorithms and solutions can be created. Who needs to memorize the quadratic formula if you can just look it up online in 5 seconds? The only reason learning the quadratic formula could be useful is if you learn the intuition behind it and use that intuition to create your own algorithms and formulas.
Our education system isn't moving toward this direction. It's moving in the complete opposite direction.
California is one of the most prosperous states, yet it has some of the worst and shittiest education. I went to one of the public schools and universities, and I was the top of my class many times. I’d consider myself like a fair amount above average, not super genius despite what people like to tell me. Imagine how bad the lower end of the spectrum is here. Some high schoolers can’t do middle school math, and our reading comprehension is shit. How is it that I was reading 300-500+ page novels like The Hobbit in 4th grade over 1.5 decades ago but now people literally fail to understand the lessons of books like Animal Farm in high school and embrace Communism?
I used to teach math at a small arts college. The class I taught most often was remedial. I started with addition. That was the only one most of the kids knew. Because by the time I got to multiplication, I found out many didn't know their times tables.
Last time I applied to teach at a High School, the interviewers asked me how I'd do group projects. When I said I didn't use many group projects for Math, they seemed unhappy. When I asked what they were thinking of, they said "Oh, our last Math teacher gave problem solving exercises. Like, what equipment would you bring to go camping. No right or wrong answers." ("But that's not math," I didn't say.).
Is this precise problem written somewhere in the curriculum? Going through high school, I remember being given a problem exactly like this multiple times.
I also remember history teachers often beginning with a problem relating to some investigation of a school fight (students had to determine who's a good source and stuff).
Now that I think about it, reuse of problems across classes and grade levels was really common.
I teach special education as well. Just left a large school where I taught reading. I had kids in 9th and 10th grade reading at a 3rd grade level. And these weren’t kids with severe learning disabilities either. They just didn’t give a shit and played the system throughout the years.
English teacher here (middle school thru college 100/200 levels): why? because the majority of students come into each of the grade levels I've just described not having the vocabulary, spelling, or basic grammar skills to be able to read those.
At the schools I've taught at over the last 25+ years, there has been about a level decline in reading/writing ability for each 5 year period -- that means the average college student today, coming into my 100 level course...can barely read/write at the 9th grade level of students 30 years ago. And some are worse than that -- more like can't read at the 5th grade level of students in the 80s.
This of couse means that they can't read the texts for history or science, nor write intelligible papers in the same. And then we can talk about math skills, which I believe are going the same way (at least without calculators) -- which means the science and tech classes have to be dumbed down...and on it goes to we are all here...fml.
Oml editing people’s papers in school was the most disappointing thing. Writing ended up being like my ace subject in college whether it was persuasive or technical, though I never had to take super advanced writing beyond some specialized writing courses for accounting. People would write incoherently or have absolutely zero structure to their paragraphs. Thoughts would spill everywhere and grammar was absolutely atrocious. People need to understand as well that wordiness ≠ good. It’s actually better for things to be concise unless it’s meant to be descriptive.
Yes, welcome to my world -- aka. 'this is the reason teacher smokes and drinks when she gets off work' (well, the smoking part; I don't really drink). Yes, I realize it is the education system that has done this: they've done it to students, to parents, to society, and they've done it to me, and I've been a part of it...fml.
I'm working on that with my jr. high level kid at the moment -- content? very good, even some advanced critical thinking skills are there. Ability to coherently paragraph and syntax? Not so much.
Same goes for math: she gets more advanced geometry and some basic physics theories and formulas (she understand how to do them, why we do them, and where she can get the information to do them)...but she's getting caught up by not being as solid with basic freaking math skills. I've had her start helping her autistic sister with math and grammar, because the autistic sister, whom the school basically has considered incapable of advanced learning, has had those basic skills drilled into her, so she's better than her older, normal sister at them. Hey, whatever works is my game.
I read a paper that a student dictated to his phone and printed out. He didn't correct anything including the misspelling of his own name!!!!! There was no punctuation so the whole page was one long sentance.
College athletes are even worse than English language learners. I guess because grammar is racist? Which believing that grammar is racist in itself is racist because people of color cannot learn basic grammar....? 🤔 I digress.
I taught both -- a lot of the ESL at college is taught by private companies (that's a whole other shady business but...). The international students have to reach a certain standard of English before they can get into the university. Sometimes the companies hire shit (although this tends to start a problem when said students' gov'ts. who paid for this start getting failed students back -- so sometimes the shit gets weeded out); often they get English teachers who have ran afoul of PC university or public schools -- many of them are very good at what they do...teaching actual English. Secondly, the incoming students have to learn grammar, vocabulary, spelling, reading/listening comprehension, and speaking/writing skills...to they get a lot of fundamentals that American students just don't get anymore. I've taught in the elementary schools as well: we don't teach basic grammar really: we don't teach sentence writing, we don't teach paragraph writing...it's straight to essays (7 year olds who can't spell that well; can't really compose a good sentence...writing 'essays"...fml). Use the computer, use grammar and spell check and yes, dictate to your phone...that's what a lot of teachers tell these kids to do (probably because some of the younger teachers can't do it either; and that's in the SBoE's curriculum guidelines: look them up, they're a trip!).
The college athletes are there to play a sport -- for that matter, non-athletes are there to fill chairs and give the college money. The colleges don't give a rat's ass if they learn anything or even graduate. Athletes just get to stay in school...if they're any good.
What went wrong?
We let socialists march through the institution -- some of these pedagogies had their formation nearly 100 years ago; they were just allowed to take hold and thrive. That does, however, tell you just how strong the institution of public education was (and American society as well): it has taken 100 years to bring it down...but, they did. I'd say it really picked up ramming speed in the late 90s/early 00s: the gov't. really let the floodgates loose at that time; at least for me, there was a marked uptick in oversight (prior I was allowed some latitude in creating my own syllabi) as well as a marked downtick in student abilities (we went from what I would consider a pretty basic, easily comprehended English 101 text to a text more suited for high school during that time frame; now, it's even worse -- students today cannot read the basic text that we had in 1998 -- they can't read it; their vocabulary skills and ability to read more than simple sentences isn't enough!). So the 20 somethings you see today are the first products of full blast education on socialism.
I work with people who graduated from universities in CA who can't construct a simple sentence. And, worse, don't think it's a problem they're functionally illiterate.
Half the people in college pay other people to do their work, outright plagiarize someone else's essay, or collaborate and copy each other. As someone who graduated college with honors, I'll be the first to say California colleges don't promote learning. Or at least, many classes do not. The best thing it provides is structure, a mandatory schedule and grading system that forces you to be there. But they do not encourage independent thought. I actually ended up basically being an informal tutor cause I had to teach classmates stuff without doing their work for them. I could not stand how it was more about kissing the right ass instead of learning. The only reason I'm not with a huge company right now is cause it was unbearable schmoozing up to the damn corporate elites that went there to recruit. Maybe I'm not making as much money as I could have but working in a California corporation would make me kill myself. It'd be like plugging yourself straight into the leftist hive mind.
And kids are still failing math.
Yep. Because the methodology is purposefully non intuitive to further dumb down our kids.
Bingo.
Let me break it down as a SPED teacher for a decade.
"common core" math is based a lot around the mental short cuts people really good with math use in higher level math. But they're ways of approaching math that you use AFTER you become very good at mastering the algorithmic basics.
You don't teach this shit first.
You make them master the basic algorithms first. And if they have a knack for math, they will develop some of these in their own.
This is all done under the idiotic assumption that "people good with math do math this way, so well yeah it this way." Same dumbass assumption of good writers write a lot. So we'll have kids write slot to be good writers.
My niece who is in 4th grade was showing me her math homework . A long division problem that did not have a remainder. I was able to look at it and determine that answer pretty easily. She showed me the amount of work she is required to do to solve that problem and I was floored. Not even kidding when I say a problem like 425/5 took her 2 pages to complete because that's how common core wants her to do it.
And yet I determined the answer was 85 without removing my eyes from your comment.
Damn. Doesn't sound like there's any shortcut involved.
Yep it's retarded
How could anyone think this was a good idea. Oh right, they didn't.
You're correct.
Easiet example. Partial products or quotients.
As an adult if you asked me to multiply 257 by 3 in my head I'd think ok 200x3 = 600, 50x2= 150, 7x3 = 21 add together = 771
Or 250x3=750 + 7x3=21=771
They want kids to do this instead of learning and mastering the standard algorithm 1st. At face value it's not a bad thing from an adult perspective until you delve into the asinine and arbitrary ways CC wants the kids to go about it. Like thinking in terms of how many 10s are in each of these etc etc
It's all an exercise in cart before the horse. Teach the algorithm first. Master that and then work on teaching the mental short cuts later.
Don't even get me started in teaching what used to be 8th grade topics in 5th and 4th. Kids brains aren't capable of true abstract thinking until at least 11yo and yet here we are trying to foist abstract concepts like algebra in them as young as 3rd and 4th.
As a high school student who just graduated near the top of their class, I can confirm this. Math is no longer about reasoning and critical thinking; it's about memorizing algorithms.
"Here are the problems which will be on the test, just with different numbers. Memorize algorithmically how to solve each one."
Students are given lists of formulas without an intuitive explanation for WHY they work. Naturally, the kids at the top of their class are best at "going through the system" and memorizing everything their teachers tell them. In reality, they're clueless without the system telling them precisely what they need to know.
I find these kids completely intolerable. They can't think for themselves and believe all the leftist garbage their history/english teachers tell them.
algorithmic knowledge is becoming less and less important as computers take over in that area.
The one thing humans have which computers don't is the ability to creatively and intuitively think and CREATE solutions. You can't write a program using brute memorization.
Learning algorithms is only useful nowadays as an example for how other algorithms and solutions can be created. Who needs to memorize the quadratic formula if you can just look it up online in 5 seconds? The only reason learning the quadratic formula could be useful is if you learn the intuition behind it and use that intuition to create your own algorithms and formulas.
Our education system isn't moving toward this direction. It's moving in the complete opposite direction.
California is one of the most prosperous states, yet it has some of the worst and shittiest education. I went to one of the public schools and universities, and I was the top of my class many times. I’d consider myself like a fair amount above average, not super genius despite what people like to tell me. Imagine how bad the lower end of the spectrum is here. Some high schoolers can’t do middle school math, and our reading comprehension is shit. How is it that I was reading 300-500+ page novels like The Hobbit in 4th grade over 1.5 decades ago but now people literally fail to understand the lessons of books like Animal Farm in high school and embrace Communism?
I am a special education math teacher. I get kids coming to me with pre-k level math skills. Yeah its bad.
Edit: Middle school math.
I used to teach math at a small arts college. The class I taught most often was remedial. I started with addition. That was the only one most of the kids knew. Because by the time I got to multiplication, I found out many didn't know their times tables.
Last time I applied to teach at a High School, the interviewers asked me how I'd do group projects. When I said I didn't use many group projects for Math, they seemed unhappy. When I asked what they were thinking of, they said "Oh, our last Math teacher gave problem solving exercises. Like, what equipment would you bring to go camping. No right or wrong answers." ("But that's not math," I didn't say.).
Oh, did I mention this was all in California?
Is this precise problem written somewhere in the curriculum? Going through high school, I remember being given a problem exactly like this multiple times.
I also remember history teachers often beginning with a problem relating to some investigation of a school fight (students had to determine who's a good source and stuff).
Now that I think about it, reuse of problems across classes and grade levels was really common.
So... Did you get the job though?
I teach special education as well. Just left a large school where I taught reading. I had kids in 9th and 10th grade reading at a 3rd grade level. And these weren’t kids with severe learning disabilities either. They just didn’t give a shit and played the system throughout the years.
English teacher here (middle school thru college 100/200 levels): why? because the majority of students come into each of the grade levels I've just described not having the vocabulary, spelling, or basic grammar skills to be able to read those.
At the schools I've taught at over the last 25+ years, there has been about a level decline in reading/writing ability for each 5 year period -- that means the average college student today, coming into my 100 level course...can barely read/write at the 9th grade level of students 30 years ago. And some are worse than that -- more like can't read at the 5th grade level of students in the 80s.
This of couse means that they can't read the texts for history or science, nor write intelligible papers in the same. And then we can talk about math skills, which I believe are going the same way (at least without calculators) -- which means the science and tech classes have to be dumbed down...and on it goes to we are all here...fml.
Oml editing people’s papers in school was the most disappointing thing. Writing ended up being like my ace subject in college whether it was persuasive or technical, though I never had to take super advanced writing beyond some specialized writing courses for accounting. People would write incoherently or have absolutely zero structure to their paragraphs. Thoughts would spill everywhere and grammar was absolutely atrocious. People need to understand as well that wordiness ≠ good. It’s actually better for things to be concise unless it’s meant to be descriptive.
Yes, welcome to my world -- aka. 'this is the reason teacher smokes and drinks when she gets off work' (well, the smoking part; I don't really drink). Yes, I realize it is the education system that has done this: they've done it to students, to parents, to society, and they've done it to me, and I've been a part of it...fml.
I'm working on that with my jr. high level kid at the moment -- content? very good, even some advanced critical thinking skills are there. Ability to coherently paragraph and syntax? Not so much. Same goes for math: she gets more advanced geometry and some basic physics theories and formulas (she understand how to do them, why we do them, and where she can get the information to do them)...but she's getting caught up by not being as solid with basic freaking math skills. I've had her start helping her autistic sister with math and grammar, because the autistic sister, whom the school basically has considered incapable of advanced learning, has had those basic skills drilled into her, so she's better than her older, normal sister at them. Hey, whatever works is my game.
Brevity and clarity.
I read a paper that a student dictated to his phone and printed out. He didn't correct anything including the misspelling of his own name!!!!! There was no punctuation so the whole page was one long sentance.
College athletes are even worse than English language learners. I guess because grammar is racist? Which believing that grammar is racist in itself is racist because people of color cannot learn basic grammar....? 🤔 I digress.
I taught both -- a lot of the ESL at college is taught by private companies (that's a whole other shady business but...). The international students have to reach a certain standard of English before they can get into the university. Sometimes the companies hire shit (although this tends to start a problem when said students' gov'ts. who paid for this start getting failed students back -- so sometimes the shit gets weeded out); often they get English teachers who have ran afoul of PC university or public schools -- many of them are very good at what they do...teaching actual English. Secondly, the incoming students have to learn grammar, vocabulary, spelling, reading/listening comprehension, and speaking/writing skills...to they get a lot of fundamentals that American students just don't get anymore. I've taught in the elementary schools as well: we don't teach basic grammar really: we don't teach sentence writing, we don't teach paragraph writing...it's straight to essays (7 year olds who can't spell that well; can't really compose a good sentence...writing 'essays"...fml). Use the computer, use grammar and spell check and yes, dictate to your phone...that's what a lot of teachers tell these kids to do (probably because some of the younger teachers can't do it either; and that's in the SBoE's curriculum guidelines: look them up, they're a trip!).
The college athletes are there to play a sport -- for that matter, non-athletes are there to fill chairs and give the college money. The colleges don't give a rat's ass if they learn anything or even graduate. Athletes just get to stay in school...if they're any good.
I noticed the same trend too. What had went wrong in your opinion?
It's kinda sad isn't it?
What went wrong? We let socialists march through the institution -- some of these pedagogies had their formation nearly 100 years ago; they were just allowed to take hold and thrive. That does, however, tell you just how strong the institution of public education was (and American society as well): it has taken 100 years to bring it down...but, they did. I'd say it really picked up ramming speed in the late 90s/early 00s: the gov't. really let the floodgates loose at that time; at least for me, there was a marked uptick in oversight (prior I was allowed some latitude in creating my own syllabi) as well as a marked downtick in student abilities (we went from what I would consider a pretty basic, easily comprehended English 101 text to a text more suited for high school during that time frame; now, it's even worse -- students today cannot read the basic text that we had in 1998 -- they can't read it; their vocabulary skills and ability to read more than simple sentences isn't enough!). So the 20 somethings you see today are the first products of full blast education on socialism.
I work with people who graduated from universities in CA who can't construct a simple sentence. And, worse, don't think it's a problem they're functionally illiterate.
Half the people in college pay other people to do their work, outright plagiarize someone else's essay, or collaborate and copy each other. As someone who graduated college with honors, I'll be the first to say California colleges don't promote learning. Or at least, many classes do not. The best thing it provides is structure, a mandatory schedule and grading system that forces you to be there. But they do not encourage independent thought. I actually ended up basically being an informal tutor cause I had to teach classmates stuff without doing their work for them. I could not stand how it was more about kissing the right ass instead of learning. The only reason I'm not with a huge company right now is cause it was unbearable schmoozing up to the damn corporate elites that went there to recruit. Maybe I'm not making as much money as I could have but working in a California corporation would make me kill myself. It'd be like plugging yourself straight into the leftist hive mind.
yeah... but at least they know 2+2=5 !