we don t need no stinking history

[Sue U]

My dog is not in any fight; I just have a few kids. And a strong distaste for uninformed opinion in matters of public policy.

[Sue U]

you seem to have your mind made up from your first post sue, any chance that you have a dog in this fight?

also, while I m at it, you dismissed everything I asserted as "bitching" in your first post. I believe I ve responded reasonable and without resorting to insult.

as you know, if you ve observed my posting history, I prefer to make my assertions and beliefs known in my own words, and rely on the rest of you to decide for yourselves whether I am full of crap or not. ridiculously slanted graphs and charts and anecdotal examples carry little weight with me, and are easily manipulated, so I don t use them or rely on them when presented by others.

the world is at our fingertips these days, so I urge people to do their own research if the topic is important to them.

what is happening in MA is not necessarily happening in the rest of the nation

I'm not in Massachusetts, I'm in New Jersey. And regardless of whether you "prefer to make [your] assertions and beliefs known in [your] own words," it's probably best if you have some actual, you know, factual basis for those claims if you don't want the rest of us to decide you are full of crap. By all means, express yourself; but if you're claiming something to be true, then show it. Otherwise you're just running your mouth (or fingers, whatever).

But it's nice to see you've mastered the "edit" button.

[wesw]

well we disagree sue. you say I m uninformed , I say you are slanting the truth, or that the truth in your area is different than the truth in mine. no point in continuing this conversation with you. anyone who cares will check and decide for themselves. I think everyone here is smart enough not to rely on either of us as the end all be all of anything.

I repeat, I am not condemning the idea of a common core, in fact I think it is desirable.

[BoSoxGal]

wesw, why don't you just post some of the stuff your daughter is doing that you think is convoluted or whatever?

That's all Sue's asking - that you have evidence to support your assertions. She's provided both assertions and evidence.

We lawyers are weird that way about statements; we want corroboration. It's easy to provide in this case.

Thanks!

[wesw]

well since we aren t banging our heads against the wall this week, what she is doing now must have some logic to it.

I ll see if I can get her to bring home some of that crazy stuff that looked like a timeline she was doing. 27 extra steps to find out that you carry the one or whatever it was.... the stuff from last year was even worse. they ve moved on to more difficult stuff now, fractions and algebra type stuff, so its much easier than the common core division and multiplication.....

but sue can stew, I ve lost interest. I m not a defendant.

[TPFKA@W]

My dog is too old to fight and this is strictly anecdotal but I have a coworker who was raised in India and educated there, as was her husband. She is now an American citizen and is raising her child here. He is a smart little guy and is in honors classes in most of his subjects including math. She told me that she was halfway decent in math and her husband was good but they have a lot of problems helping their son because the way math is taught here is so confusing compared to the way the same math is taught in India. She claims that the reason Indians are perceived as being more advanced in math learning comes down to the way it is taught. I am only able to assume her child is being taught the common core method. I always hated math and never did remarkably well in it and she swears I would pick it right up if I learned the way she learned.

[Guinevere]

Wes - how do you know "what's happening in Massachusetts now" when your daughter is in school in Delaware? As I recall, your older child - who you said went to elementary school in Plymouth - is in his late teens now? So that was a decade ago? You're not making a ton of sense.

[wesw]

I thought sue was from MA. my mistake. my sons 24. I was in mass about 15 yrs ago

[Econoline]

What many people (including Wes) seem to be missing is that while the common core standards are set at a national/international level, the implementation--including teaching, curricula, texts, and other materials--is all done at a state and/or local level. Usually, what most critics should be complaining about is not the common core standards but rather their local schools or maybe even an individual teacher.

Again, look at the actual list of the STANDARDS that Sue posted and tell us what's wrong with them. And remember that if anyone tells you that teaching methods are part of the standards, they're lying.

(Full disclosure: my daughters are now aged 37 and 40; the older one teaches at a public school in Connecticut.)

[Guinevere]

Econo - which town (or county, anyway)?

[Econoline]

New Haven County, north of New Haven. I think the school's in North Haven, though she and her husband live some distance north of there.

[wesw]

I know there are a lot of posts to read. but I think that i made clear that the problem solving methods for math are what I disagree with and one locality may be different than another

[oldr_n_wsr]

Here is a link to some common core math questions with the way to solve them. Seems a little convoluted to me (someone who did take advanced math and did very well in it even though I hated it. Graduated summa cum laude with a BSEE)
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/3 ... lec-torres

[wesw]

edit for earlier.... 15 yrs ago, not 15 yrs

[rubato]

So your belief that:

by wesw » Mon Dec 15, 2014 11:31 am
two things no longer taught in our local schools

the history of the founding of America and her govt

the holocaust

but at least we have the common core crap, which is worse than useless.

Was based entirely on a conversation with < 1 > 12-year old?


I see.



yrs,
rubato

[Big RR]

oldr-the process used to reach some of those answers seems a bit convoluted, but it may play well into more advanced math concepts like set theory. Likewise, when I estimated a sum or a difference, I often find myself doing some of those same processes in my head. I would like to see the response of some math/arithmetic teachers on how valuable those odd processes are for students who study advanced math. Likewise, the use of graphs and number lines to figure out simple problems might well help some students who find it easier to visualize things rather than memorize them. Face it, a cheap calculator can do the arithmetic far more accurately and quickly than any student, so it makes sense to teach something other than memorizing sums/differences/products/quotients. As for the rest of the comments (lack of shaded figures, etc.) they seem to be more the result of sloppiness than the curriculum.

I recall when my kids were learning to read the current thinking was to rely on memorization of "sight words" (words that would be recognized on sight) rather than phonetics. My kids both had problems with this and I spent a lot of time working with them on phonics; it. Unfortunately, not everyone learns the same way helped in the long run (although the one who was dyslexic still needed a lot more help), and everyone cannot get the individual help they need; the best an curriculum can do is to give the most to the majority of students and (hopefully) something to each; the rest is up to the teachers and parents. Face it, not everyone thrived in the rote memorization math we learned (I still have nightmares of multiplication and flash cards), and some wound up with either a hatred of all things mathematical or a professed belief that they just don't "get" it (which was silly, because there was nothing to "get", only a lot to memorize). For me, learning what and how something is accomplished is almost always much more important than memorizing an answer; I recall hating calculus (just memorizing how to calculate derivatives and integrals) and linear algebra in college until my fifth semester when I finally understood it and it all made sense. If that level of understanding can be taught from the beginning, all the better; but it will require a special sort of teacher/professor to do it.

[wesw]

well it s obvious that rubato read the entire thread carefully and gave it serious thought before commenting..... (sarcasm)

[oldr_n_wsr]

oldr-the process used to reach some of those answers seems a bit convoluted.......

I agree (or at least I don't disagree).
When I am doing simple math I do a lot of rounding and/or seeing how close to "10" it is as multiplying/dividing by ten is easier than mult/div by other numbers. Then round and I get in the ballpark. Of course this method is not to be used in precision calculations. Add/sub/mult/div is not my strongpoints, that's why god invented "creditcard" calculators. And in advancexd mathematics, there are few "real" numbers anyway more like equations that tell the story. No single number can describe a line or a parabola, an equation is needed. Sometimes I wonder if "god" is just some ultimate mathematical equation. But I don't lose sleep over that thought.

(I still have nightmares of multiplication and flash cards),

As far as the multiplication tables, I had 2-11 memorized but the 12 times table I didn't. Went into class (3rd grade IIRC) and of course the teacher (Miss Aufschlager who from what I remember was beautiful) called on me to do the 12 times table. i got parts of it wrong so I got to write the 12 times table on flash cards that night. To this day I know the 12 times table better than any other.

I would like to see the response of some math/arithmetic teachers on how valuable those odd processes are for students who study advanced math.

Me too. My SIL was an English teacher (now a principal I think). She found the CC math to be painful but didn't have to teach it so I would bet she didn't delve too deeply into the process.

just memorizing how to calculate derivatives

nX^n-1

If that level of understanding can be taught from the beginning, all the better; but it will require a special sort of teacher/professor to do it.

I don't know when the brain starts to develope the thinking skills needed for that type of learning. Greater minds than mine may know.

ETA
Thankfully my kids are done with school so I don't have to figure out how to do math the CC way.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Another thought which has to do with advanced mathematics. I got through all my mathematics coursed with a calculator that only did the basic functions. When doing trig stuff, I gave answers in portions of pi rather than the actual numbers . Drove my brother nuts as he used a calcultor with sin, cos, tan functions. (We pretty much went to school togther, took the same courses at the same time band graduated in the same year. He was a semester behind as he had to take some english course to finish).
Mom did get to see us both graduate and a month later she died of cancer.

[Econoline]

"It's so simple, so very simple,
that only a child can do it."

Tom Lehrer explains it for you: