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I'm glad I remembered this post. I received an email from my daughter's fifth-grade math teacher today asking me to come in for a conference because my daughter is having trouble with the class. It happened to come on a day when I was already planning on sitting with my daughter as she logged onto the Edmodo website (a teaching website used by my daughter's school, for those that aren't familiar).
They are working on long division, dividing four digit numbers by a single digit number. Now, my daughter already knows how to do long division with a little bit of prompting. But after watching the video lesson that was included I quickly came to realize why she is having an issue. This was not division.
The problem to solve was 7152 divided by 8. Simple, right? Not so much. Here is how they were expected to do it:
Multiple 8 by hundreds (8x100, 8x200, 8x300, etc.) until you reach a number that is more than what will go into 7152. The highest number that fits is written under the 7152, and you subtract to get the next problem. You then write the multiplier that got you that number (in this case 800) above the bracket. Now, you take the remainder of your original math problem and move it over to the side, and then you multiply 8 by tens (8x10, 8x20, 8x30, etc.) to get the highest number that goes into the number that you just moved. We're halfway done!!!!! Your next step is to write the multiplier on the same line as the original multiplier - but separate from it - and do the subtraction to get your new remainder. Then you move that remainder to the side of the problem and you multiply 8 by ones (8x1, 8x2, 8x3, etc.) to get the number that fits. Write your multiplier up on the top line, do the subtraction to make sure the problem zeroes out, then add the three numbers that you came up with (800+90+4) to get the actual answer to the problem, which is 894. You'd think we'd be done now, but you'd be wrong. Now you have to multiply 894 by 8 to make sure that you get 7152 in order to check your work. All of this had to be done on paper to be turned in to the teacher, and the answer also had to be entered into the Edmodo site.
Needless to say, the conference that I will be attending with my daughter's math teacher probably won't be fun for any of us. This process was confusing to me, a middle-aged man who has no problem doing long division in my head the "old-fashioned" way, and it was confusing to my wife, a woman who literally works with numbers all day long.
Any teacher who thinks that Common Core is a good thing, please explain to me why we are turning a 20-minute homework assignment into a 2-3 hour ordeal by adding confusing and illogical processes to the equation. Perhaps you can keep me from losing my cool with the teacher and the school district by explaining how making math more confusing for children is a better way to teach them.
Perhaps you can keep me from losing my cool with the teacher and the school district by explaining how making math more confusing for children is a better way to teach them.
Or maybe you could grow up and learn to take responsibility for your own reactions, and discuss it rationally with the teacher.
Or maybe you could grow up and learn to take responsibility for your own reactions, and discuss it rationally with the teacher.
It is not irrational or irresponsible of him to say common core is confusing. Granted, as you have seen me say before, it is first, the parent's duty to teach the fundamentals.
Common core is as objectively bad as basements in Florida. There may be situations where it can work but, it's pure coincidence and, just generally a very bad idea.
Or maybe you could grow up and learn to take responsibility for your own reactions, and discuss it rationally with the teacher.
Exactly where in my post did I perform any action which I am supposed to take responsibility for? I'm fairly sure that I had nothing to do with implementing the curriculum that the school is using. Am I supposed to take responsibility for helping my daughter to understand her homework? Check. I did that, and even though I completely disagree with the processes which are being taught I didn't let her know that fact.
Am I not supposed to be concerned that the math they are teaching my daughter is so convoluted that it makes her not want to go to school or do her homework? Am I supposed to sit back and watch while my daughter's grades spiral because the school is determined to make math more complicated than it should be? Which of my actions am I supposed to "take responsibility for" here? So far, I haven't done anything except reply to the teacher's email accepting her request for a conference. Maybe I shouldn't have done that?
Or maybe you could grow up and learn to take responsibility for your own reactions, and discuss it rationally with the teacher.
When the job is educating your child, and someone is calling you in because your child is failing to learn something stupid, it's appropriate to express an objection.
I'm sure the parent would like to discuss things rationally, but the fear is that he's going to run into a fight with an unchanging curricula that neither party has any input on. In that situation, the teacher is forced to play the role of a police officer, not an educator. The educator has been handcuffed to a process with very little flexibility. Flexibility, and the ability to teach concepts in multiple ways, having always been paramount in helping children that learn differently master new things.
The stress level rises because, what is he to do? Allow his child to fail? The parent will resort to the only thing left. Learning a concept will not work. Learning someone's process slows actual learning and thinking development. Hence, enter the dragon parents. Fights for grades etc. The passive parents lose. The parents are being taught as well....how to play the system to helicopter over their children from getting crushed by this ridiculous system that's making a few text providers a ton of money.
And that's what all of this boils down too. If I have to prove my textbook and materials to 100,000 school teachers, I won't win them all. If I have to sell to 5,000 schools, I won't win them all. If there was only a way to force it through the state and to wine and dine one group of people for the whole prize....
When the job is educating your child, and someone is calling you in because your child is failing to learn something stupid, it's appropriate to express an objection.
I'm sure the parent would like to discuss things rationally, but the fear is that he's going to run into a fight with an unchanging curricula that neither party has any input on. In that situation, the teacher is forced to play the role of a police officer, not an educator. The educator has been handcuffed to a process with very little flexibility. Flexibility, and the ability to teach concepts in multiple ways, having always been paramount in helping children that learn differently master new things.
The stress level rises because, what is he to do? Allow his child to fail? The parent will resort to the only thing left. Learning a concept will not work. Learning someone's process slows actual learning and thinking development. Hence, enter the dragon parents. Fights for grades etc. The passive parents lose. The parents are being taught as well....how to play the system to helicopter over their children from getting crushed by this ridiculous system that's making a few text providers a ton of money.
And that's what all of this boils down too. If I have to prove my textbook and materials to 100,000 school teachers, I won't win them all. If I have to sell to 5,000 schools, I won't win them all. If there was only a way to force it through the state and to wine and dine one group of people for the whole prize....
That's the real math in this.
I do believe that you responded much better than I could. You pretty much nailed the situation. The funny thing is, we went through a similar issue at my other daughter's old school, and I did become the dragon parent; not by choice, but because I was forced to deal with "educators" who were unwilling to accept the fact that not every child is the same. I'm hoping to not have to resort to dragon mode this time, but from the tone of the email I received and general conversations with the teachers, those hopes are slim.
The new methods of teaching CC math, it seems to me, cannot be well evaluated until we know how students perform in more advanced mathematics.
Do we find more students studying and doing well in, say, a course on tensor calculus and differential geometry? Will future students do well in deriving, say, the equation for an undulating spring inside an elevator going up & down on a ocean vessel bouncing along on waves on the Pacific Ocean on the rotating Earth revolving around the sun? Will they do well in the calculus of stochastic processes applied to financial asset pricing?
My fear is that bright students will be turned away from mathematics because its beauty is obscured, and this may well translate ultimately (connecting several dots) into lower GDP?
We have many bright students who come to the USA for college or grad school from other countries; how did they learn math? Here's a photo of the 2015 graduating class program with M.A.s in stat from Columbia University. How did these students learn math?
Quote:
Originally Posted by RageX
A picture of a page from a ChinaTown phone book does little to augment any argument. Of course any child is going to be smarter when they are raised with a language thay has 2,300 characters, where ours has less than 100.
Anyway, all this bickering between adults highlights just how bad common core is. Imagine how the kids must feel. I was able to teach my son multiplication up to 5s when he was 4 cuz' I made it fun for him. Te 5s were the hands so that's easy. The 1s are also easy. The 2s and 3s he learned with the PeaBuddies (3 stuffed Pea toys with happy faces in a pea pod). A tangent but, also an example.
I understand the need for standards. Teachers don't have time to teach that many different ways but, it needs better execution. Common core is poorly thought out, frustrating and, ...it's just crap! No, I am not a teacher but, you don't have to be a mechanic to know a car with 3 out of 4 wheels and no steering column DOESN'T WORK!
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlaskaErik
They didn't learn it the way it's taught in the US these days. Guaranteed. We're what...in 38th place out 71 countries evaluated. I expect that to get even worse over the next decade.
The chapter in Gladwell's book goes much more in depth on this subject, but its quite interesting to see how Asian children learn math vs. how we Westerners teach it.
I'm glad I remembered this post. I received an email from my daughter's fifth-grade math teacher today asking me to come in for a conference because my daughter is having trouble with the class. It happened to come on a day when I was already planning on sitting with my daughter as she logged onto the Edmodo website (a teaching website used by my daughter's school, for those that aren't familiar).
They are working on long division, dividing four digit numbers by a single digit number. Now, my daughter already knows how to do long division with a little bit of prompting. But after watching the video lesson that was included I quickly came to realize why she is having an issue. This was not division.
The problem to solve was 7152 divided by 8. Simple, right? Not so much. Here is how they were expected to do it:
Multiple 8 by hundreds (8x100, 8x200, 8x300, etc.) until you reach a number that is more than what will go into 7152. The highest number that fits is written under the 7152, and you subtract to get the next problem. You then write the multiplier that got you that number (in this case 800) above the bracket. Now, you take the remainder of your original math problem and move it over to the side, and then you multiply 8 by tens (8x10, 8x20, 8x30, etc.) to get the highest number that goes into the number that you just moved. We're halfway done!!!!! Your next step is to write the multiplier on the same line as the original multiplier - but separate from it - and do the subtraction to get your new remainder. Then you move that remainder to the side of the problem and you multiply 8 by ones (8x1, 8x2, 8x3, etc.) to get the number that fits. Write your multiplier up on the top line, do the subtraction to make sure the problem zeroes out, then add the three numbers that you came up with (800+90+4) to get the actual answer to the problem, which is 894. You'd think we'd be done now, but you'd be wrong. Now you have to multiply 894 by 8 to make sure that you get 7152 in order to check your work. All of this had to be done on paper to be turned in to the teacher, and the answer also had to be entered into the Edmodo site.
Needless to say, the conference that I will be attending with my daughter's math teacher probably won't be fun for any of us. This process was confusing to me, a middle-aged man who has no problem doing long division in my head the "old-fashioned" way, and it was confusing to my wife, a woman who literally works with numbers all day long.
Any teacher who thinks that Common Core is a good thing, please explain to me why we are turning a 20-minute homework assignment into a 2-3 hour ordeal by adding confusing and illogical processes to the equation. Perhaps you can keep me from losing my cool with the teacher and the school district by explaining how making math more confusing for children is a better way to teach them.
Yes, to all of this!!!
You hit the nail on the head. It is SO frustrating to see your child struggle with what should be simple concepts. But its like we're stuck. Many of us really don't have a choice but to go along with this nonsense because we don't have any real alternatives.
Any teacher who thinks that Common Core is a good thing, please explain to me why we are turning a 20-minute homework assignment into a 2-3 hour ordeal by adding confusing and illogical processes to the equation. Perhaps you can keep me from losing my cool with the teacher and the school district by explaining how making math more confusing for children is a better way to teach them.
Making math more confusing for children, or even their parents, is not a better way to teach them.
It might help if you keep in mind that quite a few teachers don't like this type of math either, I would go so far as to claim the majority at the elementary level don't. There have been teachers at PD sessions who have cried over this. There have been a number of schools/school systems where teachers have been put on work improvement plans for agreeing with parents that it is awful or for trying to get around teaching that way.
The math standards written in the Common Core, which in turn dictate the current teaching methods and modalities you are complaining about, are not good. They need to be revised. They are based on research, however it is my belief along with a lot of other educators that causation confusion and erroneous conclusions were not only made but acted on. If you read much education research you know that faulty generalizations and/or conclusions are a not an uncommon problem, which is why it has been a good thing that in the past there has generally been a natural limited field testing since school boards had to one by one buy into new stuff since we didn't have standardized curriculmn. Unfortunately, this method of strictly inquiry based modality instruction, where alternate solving and multi-step estimation is emphasized, became vogue with the movers and shakers in math education at this same time there has been a rush for all core content to have national standards and pressure was put on governors to adopt it. By the way, math is not the only subject involved in Core Content even though it's the only one you hear about.
However, the bottom line is, getting upset at the teacher, who might be under threat of a bad evaluation if it is found out she did anything but support it to a parent, is not going to help. Chances are she would love to change it. If you are serious about doing something that might lead to change gather like minded parents and address your elected school board.
__________________
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Making math more confusing for children, or even their parents, is not a better way to teach them.
It might help if you keep in mind that quite a few teachers don't like this type of math either, I would go so far as to claim the majority at the elementary level don't. There have been teachers at PD sessions who have cried over this. There have been a number of schools/school systems where teachers have been put on work improvement plans for agreeing with parents that it is awful or for trying to get around teaching that way.
The math standards written in the Common Core, which in turn dictate the current teaching methods and modalities you are complaining about, are not good. They need to be revised. They are based on research, however it is my belief along with a lot of other educators that causation confusion and erroneous conclusions were not only made but acted on. If you read much education research you know that faulty generalizations and/or conclusions are a not an uncommon problem, which is why it has been a good thing that in the past there has generally been a natural limited field testing since school boards had to one by one buy into new stuff since we didn't have standardized curriculmn. Unfortunately, this method of strictly inquiry based modality instruction, where alternate solving and multi-step estimation is emphasized, became vogue with the movers and shakers in math education at this same time there has been a rush for all core content to have national standards and pressure was put on governors to adopt it. By the way, math is not the only subject involved in Core Content even though it's the only one you hear about.
However, the bottom line is, getting upset at the teacher, who might be under threat of a bad evaluation if it is found out she did anything but support it to a parent, is not going to help. Chances are she would love to change it. If you are serious about doing something that might lead to change gather like minded parents and address your elected school board.
Can an elected school board really do anything in a state that has adopted common core though?
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