Common core craziness

hopanka

Just having a fit over DS's homework. Something like what you see attached.

Princess_Lily

What grades are these "math problems" in?

Do they teach children arithmetic at some point or not? If I were you I would still show LO the correct answer through arithmetic and try to figure out the mistake together.
Number lines were used in the 80s, they aren't unfamiliar but a PITA.

How many problems do they give in an assignment? I can't imagine doing 20 of these...

hopanka

The attached pic i just found funny, it wasn't my kid's exact assignment. I just felt the same way. They were to find an area of two objects. Instead of multiplying the two sides and being done with it, they had to show the answer in three different ways, all connecting with the equal sign, making it a huge line of numbers, symbols and parentheses. This only managed to thoroughly confuse my third grader, not teaching him anything. This math beyond their developmental ability will only cause kids to develop a negative relationship with math. I had this convo with another mom of a third grader at our school, who is a teacher, and she said her son had a full on meltdown over math the other day, too. Why cant you fucking teach them the basics? Area of a rectangle: A x B. DONE!!

hopanka

Auntie: My child left behind, lol! EXACTLY

typeset

All math is evil. 

macchiatto

fredalina said:

Disclaimer: I know nothing about specific curricula for math. Singapore math is the one I saw railed against in an article this morning (by a fed up teacher who quit). Ironic.

Interesting. I've heard a lot of good things about it but don't have personal experience with it. The core knowledge magnet school here (which we considered but didn't go with for other reasons) and the one my sister teaches at in NM use Singapore math. They love it. A lot of the home-school parents I know choose it, too. Saxon Math was my favorite when I was a kid.

MirandaHobbes

Funny- Singapore Math is the end-all-be-all here, and is only available in one of my neighborhood schools (the richest one that pretends it is a private school and has a waitlist a mile long). When I went on a tour of their school its all the principal would talk about.

But also, evil!

ToastieSimons

typeset said:

All math is evil. 

No way!  I love math.  Inteprative research papers are evil!

macchiatto

fredalina said:

It may not have been the program itself as much as the switch to the program that the teacher took issue with. They had a curriculum that worked well and teachers were trained on, and they changed to Singapore making teachers have to do more timing. Her problem was the amount of assessments and teacher training and data collecting takes teachers away from the classroom making it hard to meet the kids' needs. I'm sure she's right.

Ah yeah, I can see how that would be frustrating.

JoJoGee

My degree was in teaching middle childhood Math.  And, as a math tutor for the past 13 years, I will say this... The best math instruction is instruction that is tailored to the student's strengths.  A good critical thinker might do well with the question displayed above.  But, someone who is good with processes would benefit from traditional arithmetic instruction.  And a visual learner may need to see how the pieces fit together first, before attempting any formal 'math.'  Then, once the ground work is laid, the other stuff can be filled in.  So, a critical thinker can learn the arithmetic.  The process learner can learn the 'Why.'  And, the visual learner can deepen his critical thinking skills.  Of course, there are many different learning styles, but you get the idea.

Basically, I just think one size fits all education is BS.