(01-16-2015, 08:36 PM)C Wrote:Indeed, which is where my next thought is "Why force it on the kids who can't grasp it? As long as they're learning how why not just let the kids who get Common Core use that and the ones who can't use a different method or the old one?"(01-16-2015, 08:30 PM)Lilithium Wrote: I've gotten into this with my aunt, who teaches second grade in a small town outside of Bozeman, Montana. She thinks it's amazing, yet my cousin (a fifth grade math teacher in a town a few hours away) thinks it's insanity. Her kids are having such a hard time with it even though she's learned how to teach them.
Which is where Naunet's comment about having alternate strategies comes in. We both know that different people can have wildly different ways of learning. What works great for some people is awful for others.
But one of the problems is it's been Common Core or gtfo for some of these schools. Which I cringe at so hard I want to turtle inside my hoodie that they're laying down the law for how a child should learn something and restricting their use of creativity and growth because 'our way is best way'.
Quote:If I see a problem that goes, "1000 - 865 = ?", my brain doesn't sit there and do
1000
- 865
135
No, my brain goes "well it's 200 to get from 800 to 1000, but adding 200 to 865 gets me 1065 so really I need to subtract 65 from 200. 60 from 200 is 140 and I still have another 5 to take away so that's 135". And my brain does that really, really fast, without even really thinking about it.
...if that's really all that Common Core is, then I don't see the problem with it, save that it looks really convoluted when written down.
I do the same thing. The written down part is what confuses some people because it's taking something that normally calculates itself in your head almost automatically and trying to map it out step by step. When I helped my fifteen year old sister with her schooling? It was a nightmare.
