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I can't stand common core math! My son is in 3rd grade now and I literally can't help him. It's frustrating to me that he knows every single multiplication and division answer right away (get's his intelligence from my wife), but he has issues writing out the explanations and properties. Can not wait until North Carolina drops this stupid experiment...HATE IT!
I can't stand common core math! My son is in 3rd grade now and I literally can't help him. It's frustrating to me that he knows every single multiplication and division answer right away (get's his intelligence from my wife), but he has issues writing out the explanations and properties. Can not wait until North Carolina drops this stupid experiment...HATE IT!
My 4th grade son is the same way. Math comes easy and so do the answers so having to show work is the challenging part. I have a 3rd grade daughter and the different ways they are teaching her work for her. I want them to keep it though because what they come with next could be worse and then the kids have to learn a whole new way to do math etc.
develop and adopt a system that made no sense and was a convoluted way in which to teach the subject? Could the misunderstandings actually lie someplace else? Would you have to count the words in bold to know that there are five?
The theme that parents are too dumb to question anything wore itself out years ago.
Seriously, one of the biggest lessons I've learned in years of development is nothing should be developed by a group of experts in that particular subject. They are too close to the subject and get to wrapped up in all the bells and whistles rather than what they're really trying to accomplish. In engineering the standard joke is you have to shoot the engineers to get the product out the door, with the context being they'll just keep adding new "features." Never put computer geeks in charge of implementing a computer system because they'll get wrapped up in the system and forget that it has to serve the needs of the users. Real world ground truth trumps theory every time. Same thing should apply in education -- when parents say something isn't working, then it's time to listen to them.
I can't stand common core math! My son is in 3rd grade now and I literally can't help him. It's frustrating to me that he knows every single multiplication and division answer right away (get's his intelligence from my wife), but he has issues writing out the explanations and properties. Can not wait until North Carolina drops this stupid experiment...HATE IT!
So, your goal is that your kids never grow up to be any smarter than you? Or your wife?
And if you've ever subsribed to that silly "give a man a fish" parable, CC comes from the "teach a man to fish" side. Keep that in mind.
You seem to be working from a belief that everyone should be thrilled with Common Core and anyone who isn't must, by necessity, be wrong. Sorry that we don't all agree with you, but many of us who don't like Common Core don't like it for the simple reason that it makes zero sense.
Common Core has several major flaws:
1. It attempts to completely change the standards for mathematics without actually addressing the underlying problems with education in general.
2. It takes a subject that is already confusing for children (most of whom are not logical thinkers, to begin with) and makes it more confusing. I've seen the arguments about it teaching children "number theory" and it is a ridiculous argument. A 10-year-old doesn't need to know "why" 2+2=4. They aren't philosophers, mathematicians, or theorists. They are children who should be learning the basics of "how" to solve math problems.
3. It is designed to make the ability to take a test, rather than the learning of a subject, the focus. It's great that some of the children are going to be able to pass the standardized testing. However, the ability to take a test does not equate to the ability to retain the knowledge, and not all children are going to learn at the same rate - no matter how much the system would like for them to do so.
4. It is a one size fits all system, which is utterly impossible to accomplish. Every student is required to do math problems in exactly the same way, depending on what process the focus is on that week. Testing the process rather than the result is a ridiculous method. While there is exactly one correct answer to every math problem, there are multiple processes that you can use to reach that answer. Forcing children to use processes that they either don't understand or don't like is not a good way to make education enjoyable. Education should be enjoyable. Students who enjoy learning make better students, and there is no denying it. Confusing a room full of 10-year-olds by making them jump from one process to the next is a wonderful way to make them detest math class, as my daughter currently does.
Overall, though, the biggest problem with Common Core lies in implementation. It creates a standardized structure for what children should know by a certain grade level, but it does nothing to help ensure that the teaching of that information is standardized. It is basically a band-aid over a bullet wound. If you're going to make an attempt to "fix" our education standard at a national level at least "fix" it all the way. Either create a guided program that teachers are required to learn in order to achieve the goals, or stay the hell out of the math class. Fixing it halfway is not a valid solution. In a perfect world, Common Core would have started at the college level and been focused on teaching students who were pursuing a teaching degree. It would have taken much longer to implement that way, but at least the teachers would have been teaching CC standards from the start.
While it's true that a lot of parents' frustration with Common Core is because of the curriculum that their particular school uses, that onus still falls on the creators of Common Core. They created a standard and released it without ensuring that the teaching of those standards would be standardized, as well. What we have now is experienced teachers who are forced to change their teaching style in order to meet these new standards, and that leads to even more confusion and frustration in the classroom.
So, your goal is that your kids never grow up to be any smarter than you? Or your wife?
And if you've ever subsribed to that silly "give a man a fish" parable, CC comes from the "teach a man to fish" side. Keep that in mind.
Personally, my goal is that my children grow up with a joy of learning. I don't care if they end up smarter than me, I care that they have a willingness to learn. You seem unable to understand that the frustration for most of us lies in the fact that their willingness to learn and joy of learning is being destroyed by a program that was supposed to make them better students.
You can teach a man to fish all you like, but if you teach him a convoluted, confusing, and ridiculous method of fishing he's probably still going to be a beggar.
Seriously, one of the biggest lessons I've learned in years of development is nothing should be developed by a group of experts in that particular subject. They are too close to the subject and get to wrapped up in all the bells and whistles rather than what they're really trying to accomplish. In engineering the standard joke is you have to shoot the engineers to get the product out the door, with the context being they'll just keep adding new "features." Never put computer geeks in charge of implementing a computer system because they'll get wrapped up in the system and forget that it has to serve the needs of the users. Real world ground truth trumps theory every time. Same thing should apply in education -- when parents say something isn't working, then it's time to listen to them.
That's NOT in any sense a "lesson learned." It's a phony obfuscation timidly internalized.
That's NOT in any sense a "lesson learned." It's a phony obfuscation timidly internalized.
You seem to have a greatly exaggerated appreciation of your own knowledge and viewpoints while having a very limited appreciation of the knowledge and viewpoints of those who don't agree with you. You have yet to explain how Common Core is a good thing, or to give any valid argument to those who don't support it. You do seem to be pretty good at the occasional one-liner, but if your attempt is to win support for the program you are failing miserably.
Quite honestly, your attitude is probably making people less supportive of Common Core, simply because you support it and you aren't even coming across as someone who is capable of understanding it.
I don't know a lot about the common core other than things I've heard: math is structured a whole new way that many seem to not like, and it can be so much tedious content that is can limit teacher's ability to be creative and inspire.
Anyway, I'm curious to learn more and how people on here feel about it.
Common Core is a cash cow designed to set people's career paths. It spread out to 13 federal departments and is a cash cow for many companies, especially tech companies, who get rich off of data mining students. It is not just under the label Common Core, but also fits in under Every Student Succeeds Act, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, Higher Education Act, and Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, among others. It goes by various names such as competency based education, career technical education, college and career ready, etc. Also, it involves influencing the character and values of students under something called Social Emotional Learning (SEL) which was part of the ESSA. It involves both charters and public schools and has spread to many private schools too. It's being integrated into the ACT and other college entrance tests. In time, nobody will be able to get around it, not even homeschoolers. It also includes the STEM or STEAM push, which is being pushed by Gates as well as the United Nations as part of their Sustainable Development Goals. It has been said to harm the math skills of students who go under it and those who stay years under it will be math cripples. Even the Digital Badges program is tied to it (via Gates as well as the Clinton Foundation). That ProjectXQ thing mentioned on the news about a month or so ago is also tied to it. And Betsy DeVos is a supporter of it just like her pal at the Business Roundtable John Engler. School choice is a sham as the federal government is really controlling the shots since if you take the funding, you fall under their rules. The state Departments of Education are little more than puppets for the federal Department of Education.
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