Posted on 03/27/2014 9:02:57 PM PDT by Nachum
Regards
(((hat tip)))
I agree it is a debacle, but the linked example is just a cumbersome version of columnar addition, so here we would have 60+20 + 6+6 = 80 + 6+6, but gee, what to do with 6+6, it seems we might happen to remember that 6+6 = 12, but presumably we are being told to justify this with 6+6 = 6 + 4+2 = 10 +2 = 12, then again, as obvious as it might seem that 80 + 12 = 92, I guess we are supposed to make this into 80 + 10 + 2, which corresponds to "two carry the one."
I think the thing is worse than cumbersome. There is no determinate procedure being offered, only a wilderness of identities through which one is invited to discern a path from A to B.
Take care of yourself and your loved ones.
Thank you. The same regards to you and yours.
Common core is radical egalitarian, socialist math.
It makes all, regardless of skill or intelligence, equal in their ability to solve rudimentary problems while simultaneously making all , regardless of skill or intelligence, equal in their inability to solve larger, more complex math problems.
I'm no slouch when it comes to math, but I really can't grasp what the hell they are doing when they show examples of "friendly numbers".
I'd lay good money that any math teacher worth their salt doesn't support this type of "thinking".
Or can understand it themselves.
OTOH, I bet that social studies teachers just LOVE the revisionist and inaccurate lessons on the Constitution.
And a liberal history teacher must be in HEAVEN when he tells the class that Silent Spring is a VERY IMPORTANT piece of American history.
SO much more important than the Cold War and why Communism was a bad idea that should never be repeated.
Well, it's a very simple idea, but certainly given to confusion. Here is a link to a site named Not Friendly Enough which shows a paper marked by a teacher with the note, "correct answers but let's find the 'friendly' numbers like 200."
In fact the student had completed one problem by this method, converting 320-190 to 330-200=130, and this got a "check". Apparently the student became confused as the additional problems required addends other than 10, and resorted to columnar subtraction with carrying, after adding 10 to both terms, getting the correct answers as noted by the teacher. The teacher did correctly annotate the work area to show the required addends.
This certainly illustrates that the method was nothing but an arbitary and confusing burden in the mind of this student.
It simply does not work because the foundational skills do not transfer.
The idea is that these arithmetic methods embody direct application of algebraic rules, rather than rote methods such as "carrying". It does make sense on the face of it, in theory.
I think the problem may be that the algebraic nature of these rules is not perceived by the students, and I guess this is what you are saying. I always said that mathematical difficulty lies not in complication, but abstraction, and it does seem to me that the traditional rote methods are more pedagogically sound, and in fact this program is very likely shaping up as the disaster that its reactionary critics are proclaiming it to be.
... remind you of anything?
There are only ten images in math ... one through nine and a zero (now in the white house) and no matter the operation, whether adding, subtracting, dividing or multiplying, the human brain is asked to deal with only two.
And now we have calculators .... so the math is not the issue ... changing the language IS.
Centuries ago, Rush frequently reminded us that words have meanings .... perhaps he should resurrect that statement.
I didn't say anything about the language; I was replying to someone upthread who had commented that he'd used the expanded form even through grad-school.
There are only ten images in math ... one through nine and a zero (now in the white house) and no matter the operation, whether adding, subtracting, dividing or multiplying, the human brain is asked to deal with only two.
True.
And now we have calculators .... so the math is not the issue ... changing the language IS.
I would disagree here — if it were not an issue we would as-a-country not be so terrible at it.
For example, when I was in college I was pretty good at math, and I found that extremely disheartening as I don't consider myself good and feel sorry for those worse at it than I.
Centuries ago, Rush frequently reminded us that words have meanings .... perhaps he should resurrect that statement
Oh, I fully agree that they do.
Too bad that they're frequently ignored in our political-/legal-system. (I refer, of course, to the constitutions of the various states and the constitution for the US as well.)
However you end up getting there by STILL using addition and subtraction FIRST, which is the whole point of arithmetic.
IMHO, this is going about the problem in a really convoluted and complicated way.
I usually think in this manner, like when calculating percentages in my head. But it's because I know the basics, THEN I can stretch out and use my knowledge in fancy ways.
Teaching "fancy ways" first makes no sense at all.
Sorry, no sale on common core.
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