Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Common Core Math

This^

Had a Grandfather who delivered feed to farmers out of the back of a big truck until he was 70. Watched him routinely add columns of 4 & 5-digit numbers in his head.......quickly and accurately. He used to entertain us grandkids by adding columns of multi-digit numbers upside down.

His explanation (and training) were "common core". It's not a particularly new premise.

If a test is important, you should be at least a bit anxious.

I don't think so, but I've never been an anxious person about much of anything.

I said the emperor has no clothes one too many times and was invited to leave the teaching profession.

This^

Had a Grandfather who delivered feed to farmers out of the back of a big truck until he was 70. Watched him routinely add columns of 4 & 5-digit numbers in his head.......quickly and accurately. He used to entertain us grandkids by adding columns of multi-digit numbers upside down.

His explanation (and training) were "common core". It's not a particularly new premise.

Bakerloo's so-called "number sense" I believe refers to the training to parse out numbers by place value, combine the place value terms, and recombine numbers. That's all well and good...that's what we all do everyday in our heads for large numbers. Problem is...there is not sufficient time spent on memorization of sums and figures less than 20 to make it work. I've made the comment to my kids' teachers that "speed isn't everything; it's the only thing" regarding memorization of various low-value sums and differences, and memorization of times tables to 12. Emphasis on these is approaching but not equal to zero.

So for now they have it backwards. 1-2 grade has way too much reading interpretation with no automatic sums and differences to build on.

I think that CC will put the smart kids 2-years behind, to where none will be able to enter college calculus for engineers and science majors their first year, which in turn allows 4-year completion of an engineering degree. I'll be watching like a hawk how they present algebra in the later middle school grades.

Exactly.

I remember a few people in college asking me how I did so well on tests. I told them that I read the assignments, made sure I understood what I read and PAID attention in class.

Forget the note taking and spend the time comprehending what the teacher is teaching. I see SO many jotting away notes in a fury, but not listening/comprehending what is being said.

I almost NEVER took notes, sometimes a few bullet words etc, but that was it. I found it far better to UNDERSTAND what was being taught and you can't do that if you're too busy writing.

If you UNDERSTAND was is being taught, you don't need to worry about tests and studying.

Why is it so impossible to get people to understand that?

It's how dad taught me and he was born in 1919.
37 x 17 for example becomes 37 x 10= 370 + 370 = 740- 120 (40x3, which is quicker than 3 x 37 because it's in 10's) which = 620 then add back 9 (because 40 is 3 greater than 37 and you multiplied 40 three times and 3x3 is 9), which is the final answer of 629.

Of course I can do that in my head in about 2 seconds.

... Common core math is designed to teach number sense in the early grades. Word problems are a major part of the new standards. "Renaming addition?" Never heard of it and I teach common core math every day. I don't read about on the internet...

Because they're too busy listening to their kids tell them that they got kicked out of class for sharpening their pencil when the reality is their kid disrupted class repeatedly by getting up and sharpening a pencil and then breaking it over an over again by tossing it at the ceiling.

Exactly! Everyone is all for discipline and proper behavior until it is their little darling who is misbehaving; then it is major umbrage being taken and the child being pulled out of that school.

Common Core is only one of many ways that some kids can understand math readily. A good teacher will recognize those that get it and those that don't, and will adapt. I am not crazy about the stuff my 4th grader brings home, and often show him other ways. Flash cards- rote memory- still have value (and seem to be an omission in CC perhaps.)

As I mentioned previously, rote memorization is currently somewhere between firearms and conservative thought on the tschidt list of education, mainly because it asks the students to be responsible for their own learning instead of someone else doing it for them.

What do you mean?

I think I know, but as I am quite daft, would like you to explain it to me.