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Using Common Core Principles, Teacher Computes 32 Minus 12 … in Five Steps
In theory, Common Core is a reasonable and non-controversial policy: Sponsored by the National Governors’ Association, it is a set of consistent educations standards intended to be adopted by the states.
However, its implementation somehow involves more than that reasonable goal. It includes new techniques for teaching math, which, at times, are ridiculous and are becoming the butt of jokes.
The Daily Caller has posted a video, which may appear to be a spoof but is not. A teacher, using Common Core techniques, uses five steps to compute 32 minus 12.
The video reminds me of the faux dare devil, Super Dave Osborne, who in an instructional safety video advises viewers, “Whenever you stop in traffic, make sure you’re at least a Super Dave safety length behind [the car in front of you]. … It’s basically a car length, but a ‘Super Dave safety length’ is easier to remember.”
[Editor’s Note: Follow the link to watch the video at the Daily Caller. We didn’t embed here because we thought we’d spare you the nightmare that is an autoplay video in a post)
Published in General
I am unhappy whenever anyone tries to impose a single standard from Washington DC nationwide.
I believe the end result will be that the Common Core far from being a core, will become the maximum allowed to teach, and if it isn’t in the core, teachers will be in trouble for teaching it. Far from a core, it will become the absolute maximum allowed to be taught.
Most kids will be worse off than they are today, and the dumbing down of America to turn us all into good little welfare consumers, will continue apace.
Actually, it can be. That’s how I learned it and teach it, to a degree — which is to say I teach them to associate it with the doubles fact and recognize that it is plus one, though I don’t actually add that extra step. “Doubles” are a little easier to memorize (fewer numbers involved) and — along with plus 10 and plus 1 and other super-easy facts — they provide a sort of home base to calculate from if you get stuck as you work on memorizing your facts.
It worked for me and works for many, though different children respond to different strategies. It also can help develop a sense of relationship between numbers and with seeing the logic behind the math, and that’s important as she progresses.
Agreed
Bottom line: what this means is that parents need to spend time with their kids understanding what is being asked of them by the school system and providing direction and instruction to help the kids navigate the curriculum.
Parental involvement = Support
I think it’d be better if they spent time together, ya know, learning, instead of “navigating the curriculum.” The public school teachers I know are getting sick of all the changes and all the new admin paperwork they must do. Rather than constantly having to realign with what the “system” requires and navigating the new curriculum, they’d rather just focus on, ya know, teaching.
Golly, we didn’t learn the multiplication table until the fourth grade, and even then, I think it was because the parents revolted and insisted on it (ah, the 90s).
I still struggle with arithmetic much more than any self-respecting math geek should. (Of course, I didn’t realize I had any interest in or talent for math until Calculus, so even with our tardy curriculum, I started late.)
I remember getting mocked by the guys on the math team in high school who used to compete to see who could add large numbers like that in their heads the fastest because I was supposed to be smart and couldn’t do it. None of them came from my elementary school.
My husband, on the other hand, used to factor girls’ phone numbers for them in an attempt to get dates. He’s the one who’ll be drilling our kids in arithmetic.
As for my mental procedure: Cancel the 2s in the ones column. Then 30 – 10 = 20.
What the Common Core was intended to accomplish cannot be accomplished in the current environment. We have an Education Department whose primary contribution has been a massive increase in the administrative burdens of education at all levels in the face of progressively falling outcomes. Congress shares the blame and would like to find a claim of glory to deflect. Common Core is precisely the sort of bottom-up states driven initiative the federal train wreck lurks in wait for. Common Core is certainly not perfect, or even very good at points. The opposition has found no end of disgraceful moments from teaching bondage as a relationship enhancer in sexual relationships to these sorts of ludicrous math examples.
The MO is well known: Education and Congress pounce, co-opt, corrupt, condition funding on, and finally mandate the program while the coalition of the billing pores over the standards for opportunities to expand rice bowls from sea to shining sea. It also locks another generation into expensive and wasteful methods of instruction rendered obsolete by multimedia personal computing, the Internet, and advances in distance learning. All of the program metrics will be geared to an archaic industrial schooling model.
Good night, Gracie.
Wow! I just look at it and see 20. The problem I have with the little Sisyphuses is that they inherited that, making it nearly impossible to get them to show their work. I tell them to fake it and just put down some corroborating check logic, but it is like petitioning a stone. I also point out to them that developing habits of exosomatic reasoning is critical to success with the maths required for advanced chemistry, physics, astronomy, and economics.
I have seen some of the elementary school math methods taught, all way too laborious in the name of imbuing a deeper appreciation for number theory. I see the worksheets and some of the methods and hear from the back of my head, “Would you like fries with that?” It is very difficult to get a little Sisyphus to play along for five minutes to get the stuff in the out basket, ruffled egos and all that.
Recall an occasion on a warm summer night stopping for an ice cream come at a MC Donalds.
The young black kid at the counter was unable to complete the transaction without calling the Manager. When she can to assist, her statement was, “Just press Cone”
The youth replied, “How do you spell cone ?”. That was 1993.
This is an improvement ? At least errors and failure feel good.
Until I got to problems that were hard enough for me that I screwed up more often than not unless I showed my work, I did it “by sight”, too. This “doing things by sight” lasted through basic algebra. Now, I consider myself much lousier at arithmetic than I should be – and it shows especially when I try to do things by sight – so I’m not holding myself up as a role model.
But if it’s any consolation, once the problems get hard enough, a kid is forced to show his work just to get through them in one piece.
When I was a child, and we put 32 over 12, subtracted the “2”s and got “0” and subtracted the “1” from the “3” and got “2.” We were taught at the same time, about ‘hundreds,’ ‘tens’ and ‘units.’ The “2”s are in the ‘units’ column. Take 2 away from 2, there’s nothing left. (Get out some bingo chips and try it, if you don’t believe me). The “3” and “1” are in the ‘tens’ column. A ‘2’ in that column represents ’20.’
None of this sounded like oogabooga to us. And it served us pretty well.
If there is one thing I have learned and this post confirms is that peoples minds work differently to arrive at the same conclusion. This needs to be taken into account with any teacher and any system. Can you imagine the teacher instructing Raymond the real life person depicted in the Rain Man or Einstein.?
And that process will continue to work no matter how large the numbers get. As anonymous points out above, it gets a little harder to find “friendly” numbers when you have equations like 786532 + 8901674.
Actually, this is not as ridiculous as it sounds. There are many different wheel shapes that can give a smooth ride, depending on the contours of the surface.
Of course, anybody who learns Common Core will probably never master the multivariable calculus necessary to calculate them. But I digress.
This picture was supposed to be embedded in my previous comment.
Edit: Still can’t get it to embed properly. Here’s a link instead.
Using that process, I was able to do 786532 + 8901674 in my head, although to recall all the digits, I had to write them down as I calculated them. Is that approach really that hard to grasp?
They apparently want us to use the term “number sentence” instead of equation. Why?
Maybe it’s an expansion of an idea coming out from around the nineties where “everything was writing” or somesuch.
My impression: This seemed to be one of those non-standard methods that some select individuals might find incredibly useful. They, for one reason or another, don’t find the traditional method helpful. However, in impressing this method on everyone else, they would be making the mistake that if this works great for them, well it’ll be revolutionary and awesome for everyone.
This, to me, seems like a potential tool that once students have been taught the basic concept can turn to augment their ability to work through a problem. Unfortunately with the limited information this video shows, I’m not sure if the foundation is being taught or not. That, I imagine, is what concerns everyone.