From what I can discern, Common Core attempts to teach expert thinking without teaching the long path needed to get a young mind to that point. Yes, some of those crazy CC math examples ARE representative of how mathematicians actually think about math, but they think that way not because they were taught some convoluted technique in the beginning, but because they started with simple processes and elaborated on them until the concepts were internalized to a point where complex sequences _are_ perceived as simple. The educators implementing these CC approaches don’t actually understand the mental model themselves, so they’re teaching by testing precise “show your work” in complicated sequences rather than evaluating for actual comprehension.
I remember being taught “estimation” in 3rd grade. It was similarly insane, trying to get kids to act on a sense of numbers which they did not have. After you’ve done arithmetic for years (decades?) you may reach a point where you can juggle numbers like juggling recipe ingredients, but you can’t get to that point without lots of precise measuring and faltering attempts in the process of developing that sense.
CC is like trying to teach gourmet cooking without any measuring devices (cups, scales, rulers) and using recipes which include complex sub-recipes that create extra material (”...use a little of the resulting sauce, and refrigerate the rest for later use”) - and grading it with Hell’s Kitchen like brutality over any deviation from the intended result and method for achieving it.
Excellent points.