Posted on 08/19/2013 4:45:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
Apparently, under the new Common-Core standards, correct answers don’t really matter. At least that’s according to a “curriculum coordinator” in Chicago named Amanda August. “Even if [a student] 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,” said the common core supporter and typical liberal, Amanda. Off course this reasoning explains quite a bit regarding our nation’s 16 trillion dollar debt, and Nancy Pelosi’s assertion that Obamacare was a “deficit reducer.” When you consider that our finest economic leaders in the Federal Reserve, and the White House, think spending more money will result in fewer deficits, teaching that 3 x 4 = 11 (if you explain it well) isn’t really much of a stretch.
Common Core: Wrong Answer Are fine - Longer
The left has long sought to bolster self-esteem by downplaying wrong answers in education. Everyone gets a ribbon; a truly disastrous lesson to teach when not everyone is capable of getting a job. And while the how is important in any lesson plan, in the end, the answer should still be correct. Amanda’s students are going to be in for a world of surprise when their first employer decides that doing the job correctly is more important than demonstrating “with words” an employee’s fundamental failure to grasp the concept of their task.
To the credit of the presumably leftists audience, someone asked if teachers will still be correcting students on math tests. The simple fact that someone had to ask the question should demonstrate the atrocious nature of American education reform. The question “are we still going to correct wrong answers” would seem incomprehensible in a system of honest instruction. Amanda, however, stumbles through a very entertaining non-answer:
“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; and not just knowing that it’s 12, but why is it 12? How do I know that?”
Well. . . Amanda, if they answered “11”, my guess is they won’t be able to answer “how do I know that” to a satisfactory degree. Well, 3 + 4 = 7, and both 3 and 7 are prime numbers. This leaves only 4 left, so we add it to our answer of 7 which is, of course, 11. Another prime number. . . How’d I do? Do I pass? What kind of world do we live in when math becomes a philosophical essay, and not a system of numbers, arithmetic, and simple truths? Well, it’s the same type of world that gives ribbons out to “honorary mentions” and lets every child star in the Christmas “winter” musical.
And this is at the center of Common-Core. At its heart is not an intent to better our failing school system (after all, you don’t do that by praising kids who get basic multiplication wrong) but to instil an altruistic sense of self-worth and liberal flexibility. To the American left, school should be an instrument to instruct children that they can be anything they want, and that the most important thing is life is that you get an “A” for effort.
Of course, I wanted to be an astronaut. . . And it doesn’t matter how hard you try, if you can’t answer the multiplication problem “3 x 4”, you’re not very likely to move into the highly competitive world of extraterrestrial exploration (although you could run for congress as a Democrat).
Amanda’s purported concentration on making sure children understand what they are taught certainly has its place in the classroom. . . Right behind getting the right answer. But don’t worry: People like Amanda will soon be writing up your child’s lesson plans.
It doesn't make sense to all educators...just the liberal ones. I've been asking about this stupid "Common Core" ever since I heard about it. Not one teacher can tell me what it is and what makes it so good as they promote it.
I always ask them, "Doesn't the name of it tell you something? Doesn't it sound Communistic to you?" They just stare at me. I doubt I'll be teaching it, especially if it praises wrong answers.
Easy to control. No production; no drugs. obey or no drugs. British used it quite successfully on Chinese during the 1800s.
They need to learn only two letters...”D” and “X” and to learn to mark the one next to the other when they go to vote. Simple strokes for simple folks.
Liberals do have difficulty with math. They believe that the behavior of 2% of the population should be forced upon everyone, that the 1% of babies conceived through rape and incest justifies the slaughter of the other 99%, that 43% of the vote constitutes a mandate, that it is immoral to give tax cuts to the 10% who pay the lion’s share of the taxes, that there are 57 states, that confiscating the hard earned money of 51% to give to those who pay no taxes is ethical, and on and on.
My wife is a math teacher at a CC school.
Lets just say that will not happen in her classroom.
Now on the grade school level, many of the students get two WEEKS of math a year. That is it.
"2 + 2 = 5" was used in the book.
And 2 + 2 does equal 5, for unusually large values of "2." ;-)
Of course, the logical inconsistency of this "truth" escapes the advocates.
“Umm, no. I’m in an engineering discipline and an industry where if (when) people make mistakes, other people die.”
School is the place to learn that even if you did everything right and wrote down the wrong answer you are still wrong. Being careful, double checking your answers and making sure is the road to success, not teaching that screw ups are OK if you understood the “process”.
How do they teach math in China? Seems to work pretty well over there. I know people who send their kids back to china for summer school since they are dissatisfied with the education their kids get in some very highly rated US schools.
How do they teach math in China? Seems to work pretty well over there. I know people who send their kids back to china for summer school since they are dissatisfied with the education their kids get in some very highly rated US schools.
But this lunacy, praising obviously wrong answers, if the child also shows a corrupt ability to rationalize fantasy, takes folly to a new level! We then combine the failure to reason to a constructive purpose, with an ability to justify failure. It would be as though the Courtiers in Hans Christian Andersen's fable, put the young boy who had the honesty to say that the Emperor was naked, into a remedial education program, to make sure he would never embarrass anyone, by telling the whole truth again!
It is impossible to satirize the compulsive denial of reality that is destroying our civilization. The imagination of normal Americans can not keep up with the passionate flights of Egalitarian fantasy.
William Flax
I say that we should begin use of this math concept immediately, but apply it individually. For example, the State B.O.E. member that proposes this program in your state, can have his or her paycheck figured with this method. Let’s see... 40 hours at $87.50 per hour, you get $325.00 this week, using Common Core Math. Now tell me how proud of me you are! Oh Wait!!! I forgot to take out for Obama Care..... now you owe the State $600.00, when can we expect your check to arrive? See, Common Core is not so bad, when properly applied!
It’s because of math that there is resistance to debts and deficits.
* “Truth” is an artificial construct of the patriarchy, invented as a tool of oppression. *
“Help! I’m being repressed!”
Ah! I didn’t think of that :)
I wonder what Muslim kids here in our skools will think.. considering math goes back a long long way in their history.
CRazy americans..
We pulled our child from first grade this morning after the parent orientation. They did not want to show the parents the books and they were all Common Core.
After my wife (former teacher, now lawyer) and her mother (retired 1st grade teacher) started asking questions, it just got worse. They want our son to stagnate so everyone else can catch up. He gets a measly 30 mins a day to either read or do math at the elevated level and ONLY 1 grade higher.
Too many intelligent people are harmful to marxist ideology.
This country is too far ahead of the rest of the world, so if we dumb down our populace the rest of the world can catch up.
If we don't have enough intelligent people in this country to fill many high end jobs, we will have to import more foreigners to fill those jobs.
More idiots will fill the coffers of Unions and Democrats.
This Common Core Bullshit is a wonderful solution if you have to correct mindset.
Oh, I HATE this!! It is permeating the schools.
When my son was a senior in high school two years ago he had to EXPLAIN all of his answers which he found stupid, tedious unnecessary and he fought against it — this was in AP Calculus classes!!
Even though ALL the answers were right, he was marked down on the explanations and ended up getting a “B” the first year — even though he got a 5 on the AP Calculus test.
Next year, same thing. He was SO discouraged he refused to explain his answers and earned a “C” by the time the final came up — he ended up getting a 100 on the final and a 5 on the second AP test and a B- in the class.
Unfortunately, he is finding the same thing at his university. He took 2nd year physics and got a B+ — even though he KNEW all of the problems, got them all right, knew the properties involved knew what he was doing — but the prof didn’t accept his explanations and marked him down on the final which lowered his grade to a B+ — he was furious to say the least.
Great way to discourage kids in higher math, physics, electrical engineering, computer science, etc.
I am a product of “new math” — a program that made little to no sense to me and didn’t seem to have anything to do with math.
I still struggle to this day!!
And, my dad was a professor of math and physics.
He said he couldn’t understand why anyone would think teaching the way “new math” instructed would be a good idea. He told me after “new math” students were coming into the university (not easy to get into) with a profound lack of knowledge in math — couldn’t do the simplest of operations especially fractions.
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