That link didn’t work for me, but I found this one —
This was a real eye-opener. I recall jokes and complaints about “new math” in early 1970s sitcoms, but I never understood what they were talking about. The “new math subtraction” that Lehrer is making fun of is what I would call “subtraction.”
That was my experience, too. And if it wasn’t my parents’ experience, they picked it up quick enough to be helpful. It really left me wondering what this other “over 35 and went to public school” method was supposed to be.
I also got the impression that many future parents in the 50s forgot all their math as soon as they left elementary school (and got 'C’s while they were in it), and a lot of the “this is all so different from what I learned” is really just a cover for “I forgot”.
I’m confused - where does it say in the Common Core what teachers will and will not mark wrong?
Where does it say that students should make 23 circles and cross off 11 to solve 23 - 11?
I looked through the Grade 2 Common Core in both Operations & Algebraic Thinking and Number & Operations in Base Ten. The closest I can find is 2.NBT.B.5 and 2.NBT.B.7, both dealing with adding and subtracting within 100 and 1000 using strategies including those based on place values, concrete models, drawings, and properties of operations.
I don’t see anywhere that it says to do 23 - 11 by drawing and crossing out circles. I can see how that FITS into the Common Core, but I don’t see that it’s required by the Common Core. It sounds like an inflexible teacher who isn’t sure how to implement what’s indicated by the Common Core.
Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but again, I don’t see anything in the Common Core that directs teachers what methods are acceptable and unacceptable, nor how a student should be graded. Those are decisions made on a teacher-by-teacher level, NOT dictated by the Core.
I really only heard of Common Core a few weeks ago when someone linked to that lady ranting at an Alabama School Board and I thought 'hey, my kids teacher makes my kid jump through all kinds of hoops to do simple arithmetic too". Then I saw that facebook post and thought ‘yeah, like that’.
I don’t know much about Common Core, I don’t really know what it dictates and what it doesn’t. I’m sort of learning as I go.
Right now I’m in a place where a few months ago I asked the teacher why my kid had to take such a roundabout way to do such an easy math problem and I was told that that’s how they have to do it and it’ll be marked wrong if they don’t show all those interim stems. Again, there was a tone in her voice that implied this came from above. I almost had the feeling that some of this would get audited from time to time to make sure that she’s teaching it ‘correctly’. Anyways, I let it go and once it a while I’ll say to my daughter, while helping her with her homework, ‘oh, by the way, here’s another way to do it’.
Then I saw those other two rants which were basically the same thing I was complaining about and but they blamed Common Core and that’s when I heard about it.
Like I said, I didn’t know until recently that Common Core was a thing so I’m still learning about it.
Here is what one of the two guys who wrote Common Core has to say about that math problem. Basically, it’s nonsense that he would throw out of a math book.
It goes on to explain that textbook manufactures redid their books to make them “common core” but more or less interpreted how to teach things in their own way and slapped the common core label on them.
As already said, Common Core isn’t a curriculum, it’s goals that students are expected to reach, and they seem very common sense to me. I think the issues with Common Core have more to do with the fact that schools are picking some shitty textbooks.
JoeyP, “this crap came from above and I have to follow it” does not necessarily imply that it’s from Common Core. It could be required by the state, or by the district, or by the principal, or (if the school is large enough) by the senior teacher in the math department. There are a lot of layers of hierarchy in education.
It’s not that big. It was probably a district decision. But, where they get the homework from, I don’t know.
Most of us learned to do the subtraction problem 43 - 19 as
borrow one from the 4 and subtract 9 from 13 giving 4.
Now subtract 1 from the 3 remaining after you borrowed 1 giving 2 for an answer of 24
According to my father, public school students in the 1920s did their borrowing not by reducing the 4 to a 3 but by increasing the 1 in 19 to a 2. Private school students were taught it the “modern” way.
This would have been in Cleveland Ohio area. I have no idea how widespread this was, but it seemed to agree with what Lehr was saying when I asked my father about it.
I think that’s really what people should be concerned about. What typically happens is that a publishing house tries to convince a particular district (or state department of education) that its integrated package of materials (texts books, workbooks, online resources, whatever) will solve all of their curriculum needs. Then, instead of providing real teacher training and professional development, a school district often just throws the publisher’s curriculum at the new(er) teachers, thinking that will be all they need. These dynamics can become caught up in high-powered big-business and political dealings, (espcially in big states like California and Texas), because districts usually must include certain things in their curricula as determined by the state department of education. For example, when George Bush was governor of Texas, he appointed a large number of representatives from long-time family and business cronies McGraw-Hill to the state’s reading advisory board, which ended up endorsing a McGraw-Hill product (Open Court).
I’ve heard of this method also – I vaguely think my father showed it to me, many many years ago. Or someone did.
I have a vague notion (but I haven’t actually taken the trouble to think it through fully) that this method might actually work out a little easier in the case that you have to borrow across multiple columns. Now I suppose I need to work out some examples and see if that’s really so.
I have professional expertise with the Common Core.
It was originally a bi-partisan effort by led by governors to coordinate state standards. Previously, every state had it’s own standards, each slightly different. The Common Core was meant to draw from the bests parts of those to make it easier to publish high quality learning materials, transfer across states, and compare student performance.
There are two sets of standards (math and English, with science in the works.) They are standards- meaning they state what a student should be able to do, but not how to teach them that. So the standard may be “student knows how to multiply numbers up to three digits,” but the method is up to the teacher/school/district/state.
There is no set reading list or textbooks, just guidelines for choosing appropriate texts. The main concern is choosing challenging texts and integrating more technical texts (reading complex non-fiction is a skill they found was often needed on college, and rarely practiced in high school.)
Anyways, Common Core is not the first education reform, and not the last. But it does have potential to help, especially in states with weak standards.
At some point, pretty unexpectedly, fringe members of the right wing decided to use the Common Core as a lightening rod. Because few people knew much about it, they could claim literally anything and nobody would be the wiser. These quickly spread on social media, and soon everyone “knew” that the Common Core requires lesbians to sacrifice American flags to the devil.
I attended one school system for Grades 1-7, then switched to another for 8th grade when my mom remarried and we moved into my stepdad’s house.
The first system was traditional math, the system I migrated to used new math. So I was put into a special math class in 8th grade for those like me who needed to make the transition.
I have absolutely zero memory of learning a single useful thing in that class. However, nearly half a century later, I still have no problems performing basic arithmetic calculations the “old” way…including complex long division.
Meanwhile, I would look at my younger stepbrothers’ homework in total bafflement, and wonder why they had to jump through all those hoops and take twice as long to arrive at the same answer I did using the old method.
Simple question: if the “old” way was so flawed, why has U.S. students’ math performance trended steadily downward since the introduction of “new math” and whatever other bullshit methods have followed in its wake?
that Facebook post is a joke. i can see how a 2nd grade student might be stumped, but why would someone with a degree not understand a number line?
Suffice to say that most of the online rants about CC are also from people who don’t really know much about CC. Frankly, if you’ve read even sven’s post by now, you likely know more than they do.
That isn’t to say that the complaints aren’t real, but that the target should be the local educators, not the Common Core. There are potentially real CC complaints, let’s say that there is a standard for 2nd grade Language Arts that is unrealistic, and should be a 3rd grade standard, but you’ll never hear anyone ranting about those online.
It’s less that people are uninformed, and more that people are actively exploiting ignorance to spread lies. There is no earthly reason why this should be a split along party lines at all, as it was an entirely bipartisan common sense reform- like road repair or running a fire department. Indeed, it started out with a lot of republican support.
But a few local politicians and frothy bloggers saw an opportunity. They realized they could say basically whatever they wanted, and it would keep resounding in the right wing echo chamber blogosphere. So they tried out a few spins, until they found some that stuck. Now, a imperfect but ultimately positive reform is in danger, all so people could get more blog hits and spread more wild fantasies about Obama.
Anyways, it’s not about the number line (though “Jack” did make a train wreck of that), it’s the asinine way lots of teachers are teaching addition and subtraction. Which, has little or nothing to do with CC.
So why are so many teachers doing it this way? I mean, it was easy enough to find a lot of examples that are identical.
even sven, that’s a good point. Since CC is a program that spans states, even though it’s not technically Federal, it’s fodder for pundits. A bad math problem is no longer a completely local issue, it’s a Big Deal. What may once have been used for a laugh by Jay Leno is now the starting point for a half hour rant fest on Fox News.
Just asking questions? There’s nothing wrong with the way they taught us arithmetic—which was apparently the “new math” you despised. With regard to overall trends in math, I think your question needs a more specific premise.
I also have professional involvement with the Common Core and would only add that (to echo Cheesesteak) we need to point out that the CC is NOT a federal mandate, though the conceit that it is a federal mandate underlies the rhetorical thrust behind so much of the BS in public discourse right now. (It was, in fact, developed by the National Governors Association.)
NCLB (aka, Bush’s project) on the other had, was effectively a federal mandate for any state receiving federal funds.
In other words, what makes you believe U.S. math performances have been trending steadily downward?
Is it because on cable news every few years some report comes out comparing U.S. students with those of other countries, accompanied by alarm bells, because it shows that the U.S. is not at the top of the list, as though this were some big, sudden change? The fact is that the U.S. has never been at the top of the list, and that’s perfectly acceptable, considering that the U.S. has very different educational objectives and circumstances from other countries.
The real lack in education is in those who are constantly blathering about education, using it as a political football, or just as recreational outrage about mythical beings on their lawns, who might learn a thing or two themselves by reading something, like the work of Diane Ravitch (Reign of Error, for example).