Posted on 10/02/2014 8:54:23 AM PDT by dontreadthis
I became a math teacher by a circuitous route. My degree is in engineering. I spent five and a half years refurbishing nuclear submarines, and then I quit work to bear, rear, and eventually homeschool our three children.
As a homeschool mom, I participated in co-ops, taking turns teaching groups of homeschooled children subjects such as nature study and geography. As our children entered their teen years, I began teach to teach algebra, trig, and calculus to small classes of homeschoolers at my kitchen table. And as our children left home for their four-year universities, two to major in engineering and one in art, I began teaching in small private schools known as classical academies.
This last year, I have also been tutoring public-school students in Common Core math, and this summer I taught a full year of Common Core Algebra 2 compressed into six weeks at an expensive, ambitious private school.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Read the whole article. Exceptional analysis from someone who knows Common Core AND the various non-common core math programs.
Bill Whittle does a brilliant job explaining this with this video: Cookie Cutter Curriculum
Discouragingly, there are a few Freepers around who think Common Core is the best thing since sliced bread.
Without doubt, this is the best critique I’ve read of common core math. Am sending this article to several folks.
Thanks for posting it.
excellent analysis
The main criticism I have heard time and time again is that Common Core dumbs down the subject matter. I have not seen that myself at the lower levels of math. But as the writer points out, “The reform mathematicians who put together Common Core are ignoring cognitive development”.
She lost me here:
“...so whether a student learns algebra in 7th or 9th grade has no bearing on whether she becomes a National Merit Scholar...”
If your kid is taking Algebra 1 in 9th grade it will be almost impossible for them to major in a STEM field.
Common Core is bad because it’s too “advanced”? That’s a first.
Ditto!
No. It's too advanced too soon. That was her point.
Sixth-graders (and probably most seventh-graders) do not yet have the cognitive skills to understand abstract algebraic concepts.
Yes, I have seen CC math worksheets for first graders where they were expected to be able to add and subtract fractions. This was totally too early to introduce this concept because the students had not yet mastered adding and subtracting whole numbers yet.
Conflating STEM with being a National Merit Scholar student seems a stretch to me. I can point you toward any number of engineers with a PE that were not NMS students.
My 5th grader is now taking Saxon Algebra 1 at a Charter School. He’s 10.
It is not too advanced, not too soon.
I identified his aptitude for math and developed it at home.
His 3rd grade public school teacher was marking his math facts wrong, not because he had the wrong answer, not because he wasn’t showing his work, but because he wasn’t “proving” his work. When I questioned his teacher why he was marked wrong, that 32 divided by 8 was 4, she said “that’s Common Core. You not only have to show your work, but you have to multiple it out again to prove you answer”.
What a waste of time.
I think this article is a smoke screen to trick you into thinking that Common Core is more advanced, which is what most parents intuitively want. Common Core is designed to make US children hate math (and reading) and to make our country less competitive in the global economy.
“..almost impossible..”
Dr Siv, So your a Common Core apologist?
Whatever. My 10 year old is on track to finish AP Calculus in 9th grade. Good luck to your prep school students doubling up on math courses as sophomores and juniors trying to catch up. Personally I’d rather get ahead earlier than later.
The entire purpose of government schooling is to dumb down American citizens.
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