Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Obama math: under new Common Core, 3 x 4 = 11 [VIDEO] [public schools]
yahoo ^ | August 18, 2013

Posted on 08/18/2013 9:28:41 AM PDT by grundle

Quick: what’s 3 x 4?

If you said 11 — or, hell, if you said 7, pi, or infinity squared — that’s just fine under the Common Core, the new national curriculum that the Obama administration will impose on American public school students this fall.

In a pretty amazing YouTube video, Amanda August, a curriculum coordinator in a suburb of Chicago called Grayslake, explains that getting the right answer in math just doesn’t matter as long as kids can explain the necessarily faulty reasoning they used to get to that wrong answer.

“Even if they said, ’3 x 4 was 11,’ if they were able to explain their reasoning and explain how they came up with their answer really in, umm, words and oral explanation, and they showed it in the picture but they just got the final number wrong, we’re really more focused on the how,” August says in the video.

When someone in the audience (presumably a parent, but it’s not certain) asks if teachers will be, you know, correcting students who don’t know rudimentary arithmetic instantly, August makes another meandering, longwinded statement.

“We want our students to compute correctly but the emphasis is really moving more towards the explanation, and the how, and the why, and ‘can I really talk through the procedures that I went through to get this answer,’” August details. “And not just knowing that it’s 12, but why is it 12? How do I know that?”

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW0VxxoCrNo

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: dumbingdown; education; obama; publicschools
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-76 next last
To: grundle

Anyone who actually believes this is an Alex Jones type Nut Case....

Get out the tin foil hat...

We know they aren’t targeting Current and Former Military members...

We know they aren’t targeting Libertarian and Tea party members....

We know they aren’t targeting Home Schoolers and Christians...

Wait, they actually ARE....

When people like Mr. Jones are actually starting to make sense you suddenly realize that we as a country are very much screwed RIGHT NOW!


21 posted on 08/18/2013 9:51:19 AM PDT by GraceG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bryanw92

Back when we had gray haired white ladies as teachers, they taught us “check your work”. If you think that 3 x 4 = 11, then divide 11 by 4. Did you get 3?

If you got 3 they would probably tell you you are right and kick you up to the next grade because telling a child they are wrong would totally shatter their lives...


22 posted on 08/18/2013 9:54:35 AM PDT by GraceG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: grundle

Speechless. Thank God my daughter is already in college, and got a solid foundation in math from my wife and myself in addition to her school classes.

The next generation is doomed. Hell, we’re all doomed at this rate...


23 posted on 08/18/2013 9:54:40 AM PDT by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GraceG

>>If you got 3 they would probably tell you you are right and kick you up to the next grade because telling a child they are wrong would totally shatter their lives...

Nope. They’d fail you (in elementary school, at least). Your father (back when kids had those) would make sure you studied enough to not fail again.


24 posted on 08/18/2013 10:00:21 AM PDT by Bryanw92 (Sic semper tyrannis)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Norm Lenhart
We have an indigenous population, carefully nurtured by government controlists to be institutionalized dullards that are sucking down the whole of society like an undertow. Meanwhile China and India are cranking out world class engineers, mathematicians, doctors, physicists etc like they are going out of style. These kids should be taught useful skills, relevant for tomorrow's world like “yes ma'am/no ma'am” in flawless subservient mandarin.
25 posted on 08/18/2013 10:01:43 AM PDT by SpaceBar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Bryanw92

>>If you got 3 they would probably tell you you are right and kick you up to the next grade because telling a child they are wrong would totally shatter their lives...

Nope. They’d fail you (in elementary school, at least). Your father (back when kids had those) would make sure you studied enough to not fail again.

I’m saying they would do that in today’s public screw-hole...


26 posted on 08/18/2013 10:01:51 AM PDT by GraceG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Las Vegas Ron

Getting a math answer wrong should NEVER result in full credit for that problem. It’s fine to give partial credit, but you shouldn’t be able to skate by with partial or wrong answers as long as you can explain how you derived those answers. It’s not fair to students who can explain their methodology AND derive correct answers.

When I was in college, some professors gave full credit and some didn’t. I had one who required all answers to be calculated to six decimals and if you were off by one decimal for any answer, you received a zero for that quiz.


27 posted on 08/18/2013 10:03:47 AM PDT by nonamer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: grundle
I am not an apologist for the Education Establishment but the video needs more context. If it were a test in college and the question is "what is the mean free path of an electron in a gas", then getting the correct formula is the important part. Messing up the arithmetic, especially if it is a timed test we're talking about, is embarrassing but not the end of the world.

OTOH, if she is really talking about 3 X 4=? in grade school, then she's misapplying the idea.

28 posted on 08/18/2013 10:03:59 AM PDT by Cruising Speed
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: grundle
I really, really wonder, and I'm not joking here, but are these people high? Really? Because that idea sounds like something my burnout friends and I might have come up with after several bong hits when I was in college back in the 80s.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

29 posted on 08/18/2013 10:06:01 AM PDT by wku man (It's almost deer season, got your DEERGOGGLES on yet? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jexrnFq2fXY)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: jimpick
Homeschooling. Just saying. Your kids might have to work for my kids later.

My sons' private high school's basketball team was being whipped by a public school rival. The public school's student section was having fun with chants aimed at the private school. The private school responded with the chant, "hey, hey, that's OK. You'll be working for us some day!"

30 posted on 08/18/2013 10:07:13 AM PDT by Straight Vermonter (Posting from deep behind the Maple Curtain)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: nonamer
Getting a math answer wrong should NEVER result in full credit for that problem

That's not what I wrote in my comment. I wrote that the student should be corrected.

I wrote that it is just as important to understand why you are wrong as well as why you're correct. Math is one of the very few subjects where you can prove beyond a doubt what the correct conclusion is and why.

31 posted on 08/18/2013 10:09:40 AM PDT by Las Vegas Ron ("Medicine is the keystone in the arch of socialism" Vladimir Lenin)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: grundle

Since 11 is a prime number, it cannot have any divisors other than 11 and 1.


32 posted on 08/18/2013 10:11:15 AM PDT by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Implementing class warfare by having no class.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GraceG
Back when we had gray haired white ladies as teachers, they taught us “check your work”. If you think that 3 x 4 = 11, then divide 11 by 4. Did you get 3?

I was helping a kid, I think he was around 11 or 12, with his multiplication and division.

He was never taught that they were opposites and once he understood the concept, the light went off!

33 posted on 08/18/2013 10:12:43 AM PDT by Las Vegas Ron ("Medicine is the keystone in the arch of socialism" Vladimir Lenin)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: GraceG
Back when we had gray haired white ladies as teachers, they taught us “check your work”. If you think that 3 x 4 = 11, then divide 11 by 4. Did you get 3?

I was helping a kid, I think he was around 11 or 12, with his multiplication and division.

He was never taught that they were opposites and once he understood the concept, the light went off!

34 posted on 08/18/2013 10:12:47 AM PDT by Las Vegas Ron ("Medicine is the keystone in the arch of socialism" Vladimir Lenin)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: blackdog

10 mg of meds or 100? oops the patient died.

1 quart of oil or 5? oops your car is toast.

50 hertz or 60 hertz? oops your electronics are fried.


35 posted on 08/18/2013 10:14:15 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Las Vegas Ron

This has been going on for a while. Twenty or so years ago, I had an argument with my daughter’s first grade teacher over “inventive” spelling where you just sound it out and spell it, rather than actually learn the correct spelling of words, as well as ‘whole language” reading methods which are another form of child abuse as well.

Needless to say, we pulled out of publik skrools and never went back. We homeschooled and private schooled. My daughter is now an independent and awesome financial analyst in New York. I’m REALLY glad I never listened to that dipsy doodle first grade teacher moron, NOR the gossipy neighbors, NOR my meddling MIL, and just did my own thing.

These poor Obama schoolers are going to be on their knees scrubbing floors or living lives of crime ...it’s really sad.


36 posted on 08/18/2013 10:16:25 AM PDT by LibsRJerks
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Las Vegas Ron
That's not what I wrote in my comment. I wrote that the student should be corrected.

But that's what the story implies or states, ie. "getting the right answer in math just doesn’t matter as long as kids can explain the necessarily faulty reasoning they used to get to that wrong answer." Everyone should have a beef with that.
37 posted on 08/18/2013 10:17:39 AM PDT by nonamer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Cruising Speed

Common Core is the new set of education standards for pre-k through 12, so yes this is a grade school example.


38 posted on 08/18/2013 10:18:41 AM PDT by goodwithagun (My gun has killed fewer people than Ted Kennedy's car.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: LibsRJerks
spelling where you just sound it out and spell it, rather than actually learn the correct spelling of words,

Actually, most words can be spelled by sounding them out. Problem is the English language has many, many exceptions.

39 posted on 08/18/2013 10:20:26 AM PDT by Las Vegas Ron ("Medicine is the keystone in the arch of socialism" Vladimir Lenin)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Las Vegas Ron
Did you read this part?

When someone in the audience (presumably a parent, but it’s not certain) asks if teachers will be, you know, correcting students who don’t know rudimentary arithmetic instantly, August makes another meandering, long winded statement.

“We want our students to compute correctly but the emphasis is really moving more towards the explanation, and the how, and the why, and ‘can I really talk through the procedures that I went through to get this answer,’” August details. “And not just knowing that it’s 12, but why is it 12? How do I know that?”

So there's really no guarantee that the students will be corrected at all, as long as they can explain why they know 3x4=11.

40 posted on 08/18/2013 10:20:42 AM PDT by FreedomOfExpression
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-76 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson