# Kid Looks Like A Genius With 8 + 5 Doesn’t Add Up To 10



## R.D. (Sep 29, 2014)

Kid Looks Like a Genius with Matter-of-Fact Retort Why Common Core Math Problem 8 5 Doesn 8217 t Add Up







So who’s right? The educators who insist on making the fundamentals of mathematics as complex as a Rubik’s cube, or the kid who probably has secret access to his mom’s old flashcards and sees this as a foolish waste of time?


Then add 3?!?!?


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## shart_attack (Sep 29, 2014)

And we wonder why this country is goin' steeee-raight down the crapper.


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## hadit (Sep 29, 2014)

I remember memorizing the addition and multiplication tables.  Made later math a whole lot easier because I didn't have to stop and figure out what 8 + 5 equals.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

R.D. said:


> Kid Looks Like a Genius with Matter-of-Fact Retort Why Common Core Math Problem 8 5 Doesn 8217 t Add Up
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I can make 10 while adding 8+5... one finger, two fingers, three fingers, four fingers, five fingers  High FIVE!.... six fingers, seven fingers, eight fingers, nine fingers .... TEN FINGERS THAT MAKES TEN, GIVE ME SKIN!..  take shoes off,... ten fingers and one toe, ten fingers and two toes, ten fingers and three toes.  See I can make ten fingers and 3 toes.


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## Zander (Sep 29, 2014)

Clearly this kid is a subversive. He needs to made to understand that 1+1 = whatever the STATE decides.


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## hadit (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> R.D. said:
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> > Kid Looks Like a Genius with Matter-of-Fact Retort Why Common Core Math Problem 8 5 Doesn 8217 t Add Up
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Sorry, that method discriminates against the unfortunate children who are digitally challenged and have six fingers or toes instead of five.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

hadit said:


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Sigh... ok

Long math:


```
8
+ 5
---

Step 1:
 1 (carry the 1)
  8
+ 5
---
  3 

Step 2:
 1 
  8
+ 5
-----
  3 +
 10 (bring it down)

Step 3 add it up:
= 13.
```


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## Samson (Sep 29, 2014)

Who is Robin@XOXOrobinXOXO


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## R.D. (Sep 29, 2014)

hadit said:


> I remember memorizing the addition and multiplication tables.  Made later math a whole lot easier because I didn't have to stop and figure out what 8 + 5 equals.



Manomanomanoman.   My heart aches for these kids when it's time to learn the complicated mad math skills to learn 8 x 5


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## aplcr0331 (Sep 29, 2014)

Who cares about that number stuff. Math is supposed to be hard, does this kid emote in the proper way? Is he sensitive to all issues? Does he use the correct language as decided by his overlords? Can he repeat with militaristic precision the talking points of the chosen political class? Can he spot the real evils of today with pinpoint precision? Math is for computers, what this kid needs to learn is to say the correct things (and convince your betters that you mean it) and he can succeed with out knowing how to add. It's better that way for all of us.


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## Samson (Sep 29, 2014)

Zander said:


> Clearly this kid is a subversive. He needs to made to understand that 1+1 = whatever the STATE decides.




I say it's excellent preparation for REAL LIFE.

Your Employer will give you two paychecks every year, one for $8,000 and another for $5,000.

How did you only make $10,000 that year?


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## Valerie (Sep 29, 2014)

@ the teacher comment/ 'correction'... no wonder the student is confused.


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## NLT (Sep 29, 2014)

IS this for real? that example of common core math is retarded.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

Samson said:


> Zander said:
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> > Clearly this kid is a subversive. He needs to made to understand that 1+1 = whatever the STATE decides.
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Taxes!!! SS and all that other stuff that government says is good fer ya, so bend over and take your spankin like a good little student.


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## R.D. (Sep 29, 2014)

Samson said:


> Zander said:
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> > Clearly this kid is a subversive. He needs to made to understand that 1+1 = whatever the STATE decides.
> ...


Are you trying to unseat Moonglow?


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## rightwinger (Sep 29, 2014)

However.....7 x 13 does equal 28


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## Samson (Sep 29, 2014)

R.D. said:


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I thought my post was relevant.


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## Zander (Sep 29, 2014)

Common Core is inane. 

If you are traveling down the road and need to make a right turn what should you do? Common Core tells them - Don't make a right!! You should make 2 left turns, a U-turn, another U-turn, then one more left!! See how easy that was?


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## R.D. (Sep 29, 2014)

Samson said:


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Sorry.  In that case who ever Robin is she quite affectionate and the tax question begs for more information


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## Delta4Embassy (Sep 29, 2014)

R.D. said:


> Kid Looks Like a Genius with Matter-of-Fact Retort Why Common Core Math Problem 8 5 Doesn 8217 t Add Up
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Reminds me of jokes my Stepfather used to tell involving arithmetic and money where you wind up deliberately short-changing people. 

2 from 5 is 3 btw, not 2. Plus 8 is 11 plus 3 is 14, not 10.


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## Delta4Embassy (Sep 29, 2014)

Samson said:


> Who is Robin@XOXOrobinXOXO



No one by that ID works here. Anymore.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> R.D. said:
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She didn't say take 2 from 5 and use the result .. she took two from five and used it to make 10.  IOW she was teaching the student to use portions and "it" referred to the number 2 not the result of the expression 2-5.

Easier example of why this approach might make sense for some arithmetic problems. 

Add 999 to 999... ok start by taking 1 away from 999 and at it to 999 which gets you 1000 then add 998 to 1000 which gives you 1998.


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## R.D. (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


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Any way you try to cut it, it makes no sense

Take 2 from the 5 and add to 8 does = 11.  Then add the 3????   14
Or
Take 2 from the 5 then add 3 .  You get 6 + 8 .  14 

Just twisted


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## Delta4Embassy (Sep 29, 2014)

"Take 2 from 5 and add it to 8. Then add 3."

There's no other way to interpret that but (5-2)+8+3


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> "Take 2 from 5 and add it to 8. Then add 3."
> 
> There's no other way to interpret that but (5-2)+8+3


You need to go back and study english again.  You don't appear to know how to apply and use the word "it."  The question was 8+5 not (5-2)+8+3.

The teacher changed 8+5 to ((8+2)+3)  Addition is associative


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## R.D. (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> Delta4Embassy said:
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Me too then


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## Delta4Embassy (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


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Dunno what you're reading or referencing but if you read the "teacher's" writing on the kid's paper, what she said is perfectly clear. And just as perfectly wrong.


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## Tom Sweetnam (Sep 29, 2014)

Sounds like 1984's famous arithmetic problem, doesn't it? Carl Jung warned us about "sick contracts" like the one heading this thread. He didn't see such things as ideological brain washing the way Orwell did, rather he saw such thinking as a willful, society-wide descent into mental illness, and into madness eventually...like what happened in Germany, Russia, and China. 8+5=10 = 150,000,000 dead. Now there's a mathematical equation any good totalitarian can sink his teeth into.


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## koshergrl (Sep 29, 2014)

R.D. said:


> Kid Looks Like a Genius with Matter-of-Fact Retort Why Common Core Math Problem 8 5 Doesn 8217 t Add Up
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Fucking idiots making our children stupid like they are.

My daughter is doing some sort of brain diagram as the *big project* this term in LANGUAGE ARTS. WTF????


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## koshergrl (Sep 29, 2014)

Funny thing is, I tried to communicate with her language arts teacher, who is also the *journalism* (ha I use that term VERY loosely) teacher...she can't communicate aside from grunts and whistles. She couldn't convey an idea if I hooked up jumper cables to her nipples.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

R.D. said:


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You are imagining the word "result" it's not there in the teacher's sentence.  You are failing elementary math because you don't know what "it" means and also because you are failing to understand the associative property of addition.


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## koshergrl (Sep 29, 2014)

You can't add 8 and 5 and get 10. 


Sorry.


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## Delta4Embassy (Sep 29, 2014)

Tom Sweetnam said:


> Sounds like 1984's famous arithmetic problem, doesn't it? Carl Jung warned us about "sick contracts" like the one heading this thread. He didn't see such things as ideological brain washing the way Orwell did, rather he saw such thinking as a willful, society-wide descent into mental illness, and into madness eventually...like what happened in Germany, Russia, and China. 8+5=10 = 150,000,000 dead. Now there's a mathematical equation any good totalitarian can sink his teeth into.



Now that you mention it, it reminds me of Star Trek:TNG episode where Capt Picard is captured and tortured by Kardassians. Torturer has lights behind him and turns them on. There's 5 or whatever lights but insists there's only 3 or something. Picard answers 5, and is punished. By the end of the episode Picard breaks and says 3. Later in counselling he confesses to Troy he really saw only 3. 

Suppose if we insist kids can do this math problem and get 10 enough eventually they'll believe it. And whatever other nonsense we insist is correct later on.


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## R.D. (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


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Yo bub, I'm not the one effin' with kids heads

It's a math problem  for second graders (I think). Take  2 from 5 in math has an answer.    You're defending the lesson to be smug, but it's still incorrect.....then add the 3 is 13 in your superior CC classroom


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## koshergrl (Sep 29, 2014)

Yes that's rather the point. Children can be taught to be stupid.


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## Delta4Embassy (Sep 29, 2014)

R.D. said:


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Can't be smug when you're wrong.  (looks very smug indeed)


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## Delta4Embassy (Sep 29, 2014)

"Add 999 to 999... ok start by taking 1 away from 999 and at it to 999 which gets you 1000 then add 998 to 1000 which gives you 1998."

Faster and easier way,

Round to nearest whole number like instead of 999+999=?

1000x2=2000 minus 2 = 1998


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

koshergrl said:


> You can't add 8 and 5 and get 10.
> 
> 
> Sorry.


The teacher did not add 8 and 5 and get 10.  You are still failing to read the question properly.

8+5=13

how do I make 10 as a partial result while determining that 8+5=13

answer:
Because 2+3=5 and because addition is associative we can change the problem from 8+5=? to

(8+2)+3=?
adding 8+2 we get 10... thus 10 is the intermediate result
next we add 3 to 10
10+3=?
Adding 10+3 we get 13.

When someone says a number 2 is gonna multiplied by 5, first we use it to ... "it" refers to 2 not the result of 2x5.  You are imagining "it" means the result.  But the result was not mentioned. Therefore "it" refers to the target of the sentence which is 2 not the result which is not even implied in the sentence in question.


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## Delta4Embassy (Sep 29, 2014)

Teacher didn't say anything about portions or fractions. Using omly what she said she was completely and irrefutably wrong. Insert words like portions might make the problem work, but that's not what the teacher did.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> "Add 999 to 999... ok start by taking 1 away from 999 and at it to 999 which gets you 1000 then add 998 to 1000 which gives you 1998."
> 
> Faster and easier way,
> 
> ...


Exactly, that 999+999 is equivalent to 2000-2, is essentially what core math is teaching.


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## koshergrl (Sep 29, 2014)

Thank you, I took college algebra, I understand the question.

The question is can you get ten from adding 8 + 5. 

You cannot.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> Teacher didn't say anything about portions or fractions. Using omly what she said she was completely and irrefutably wrong. Insert words like portions might make the problem work, but that's not what the teacher did.


You're assuming you have all of the context of this worksheet.  You know what they say about assuming right?


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## Delta4Embassy (Sep 29, 2014)

RKM's starting to remind me of a guy I knew mid-psychotic break thinking he understood Calculus.


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## R.D. (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> koshergrl said:
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Psssst...you can not make 10 withe 8 + 5


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

koshergrl said:


> You can't add 8 and 5 and get 10.
> 
> 
> Sorry.


Try again that's not what the question asks.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> RKM's starting to remind me of a guy I knew mid-psychotic break thinking he understood Calculus.


I'll have you know I'm a math major


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

R.D. said:


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Psst you fail again... that's not what the question asked.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

koshergrl said:


> Thank you, I took college algebra, I understand the question.
> 
> The question is can you get ten from adding 8 + 5.
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> You cannot.


you failed again.. that's not what the question asked.


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## R.D. (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


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Yes it was.
How to make ten when adding 8+5

Applesauce?    A CC math major, fantastic!


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## HenryBHough (Sep 29, 2014)

That particular teacher also has eleven digits at the end of its arms.

On the left hand, number 10, 9, 8, 7, 6.  Five (5, libs) on the right hand; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.  Six (6, libs) plus five (5) makes eleven (11).


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## koshergrl (Sep 29, 2014)

You can't make ten when adding 8 and 5.

You can make ten adding 8 and 2. 
Or 5 and 5.

But 8 and 2 or 5 and 5 are not the same as 8 and 5.

8 and 2 is not equal to (are you familiar with that term?) 8 and 5.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

R.D. said:


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Nope that's not the question either.  Can you discern the difference between the word "tell" and  the word "how"?  

CC math major?  Nope... I received my BS in math and engineering back in 85.  The difference between me and you is I'm not assuming the teacher's an idiot.


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## ogibillm (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


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carry the one - i.e. make ten. only instead of just saying that the kid will understand what that actually means. it'll make more difficult math concepts easier to understand down the road.


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## HenryBHough (Sep 29, 2014)

Mathematics used in the engineering of The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was of the sort being promoted by Common Core.


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 29, 2014)

NLT said:


> IS this for real? that example of common core math is retarded.


It's for real. Remember that Education Professors are the dumbest professors on university campuses.


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 29, 2014)

Here's what the kid should have done.

Bisect the numeral 8. Take the vertical line component in numeral 5 and extend it and then discard the remainder. Transpose the digits.

That's how you arrive at 10 by using the numbers 8 and 5.


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## ogibillm (Sep 29, 2014)

when properly taught this kid could tell you how 1+1 = 10, and i doubt many here could do the same.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> Here's what the kid should have done.
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> Bisect the numeral 8. Take the vertical line component in numeral 5 and extend it and then discard the remainder. Transpose the digits.
> 
> That's how you arrive at 10 by using the numbers 8 and 5.


Graphically brilliant!


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

ogibillm said:


> when properly taught this kid could tell you how 1+1 = 10, and i doubt many here could do the same.



Binary (base 2)... nudge.


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## ogibillm (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


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go and ruin it for everyone.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

ogibillm said:


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This crew's still trying to figure out how many miles it takes to get to 10 miles when you are already 8miles along on a 13 mile trip.  I figure mentioning base 2 won't help em at all


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## LiberalMedia (Sep 29, 2014)

All the conservatards raging in this thread are hilarious.

"BAWWW, Y R U TEECHING KIDS A DIFFRENT WAY 2 APPROACH A PROLLEM? STICK W/ TRADITION U FASCIST"

Enlightened progressives like mysylf recognize the need for innovation in problem solving, and are constantly coming up with new ways to solve problems.

You conservatards can have fun doing things "just the way they've always been done." The civilized world won't miss you luddites.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

LiberalMedia said:


> All the conservatards raging in this thread are hilarious.
> 
> "BAWWW, Y R U TEECHING KIDS A DIFFRENT WAY 2 APPROACH A PROLLEM? STICK W/ TRADITION U FASCIST"
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> ...


It's the authoritarians of both parties have a problem with this approach... which isn't new by any means btw.  I'm more conservative than these guys and I don't have a problem with it :-|


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## ricechickie (Sep 29, 2014)

R.D. said:


> Kid Looks Like a Genius with Matter-of-Fact Retort Why Common Core Math Problem 8 5 Doesn 8217 t Add Up
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koshergrl said:


> You can't add 8 and 5 and get 10.
> 
> 
> Sorry.



No, but you can get a 10 and a 3 (13).  And a kid that age should know that a 13 is made up with a 10 and 3 units.

I don't understand the wording of the question, nor of the teacher's explanation, to be honest.  But then again, I don't see the other problems on the page, nor did I attend the lesson that this child apparently did.


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## mamooth (Sep 29, 2014)

"Make 10" is standard terminology used in Common Core. In that context, the question was clear. The kid just didn't learn his lessons.

MAKE 10 TO ADD AND SUBTRACT - COMMON CORE 1.OA.6 2.OA.2 - TeachersPayTeachers.com


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## ricechickie (Sep 29, 2014)

mamooth said:


> "Make 10" is standard terminology used in Common Core. In that context, the question was clear. The kid just didn't learn his lessons.
> 
> MAKE 10 TO ADD AND SUBTRACT - COMMON CORE 1.OA.6 2.OA.2 - TeachersPayTeachers.com



Thank you.  I had a feeling.


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## Tom Sweetnam (Sep 29, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> Tom Sweetnam said:
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> > Sounds like 1984's famous arithmetic problem, doesn't it? Carl Jung warned us about "sick contracts" like the one heading this thread. He didn't see such things as ideological brain washing the way Orwell did, rather he saw such thinking as a willful, society-wide descent into mental illness, and into madness eventually...like what happened in Germany, Russia, and China. 8+5=10 = 150,000,000 dead. Now there's a mathematical equation any good totalitarian can sink his teeth into.
> ...



Right, they lifted the story line right out of 1984. Just substitute Winston Smith for Captain Picard.


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## Delta4Embassy (Sep 29, 2014)

Tom Sweetnam said:


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"Good artists borrow from other artists. Great artists steal outright." - Pablo Piccaso


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## Tom Sweetnam (Sep 29, 2014)

From "The Summer of Monuments" entry in Wikipedia:

"The phrase "*two plus two equals five*" ("*2 + 2 = 5*") is a slogan used in many different forms of media, but more specifically in George Orwell's _Nineteen Eighty-Four_[1] as an example of an obviously false dogma one may be required to believe, similar to other obviously false slogans by the Party in the novel. It is contrasted with the phrase "two plus two makes four", the obvious — but politically inexpedient — truth. Orwell's protagonist, Winston Smith, uses the phrase to wonder if the State might declare "two plus two equals five" as a fact; he ponders whether, if everybody believes it, does that make it true? The Inner Party interrogator of thought-criminals, O'Brien, says of the mathematically false statement that control over physical reality is unimportant; so long as one controls their own perceptions to what the Party wills, then any corporeal act is possible, in accordance with the principles of doublethink ("Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once").[2]


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## Tom Sweetnam (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> koshergrl said:
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Do you ever listen to yourself? You went to one of Jesse Jackson's "mathbonics" seminars in Oakland, didn't you?


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

mamooth said:


> "Make 10" is standard terminology used in Common Core. In that context, the question was clear. The kid just didn't learn his lessons.
> 
> MAKE 10 TO ADD AND SUBTRACT - COMMON CORE 1.OA.6 2.OA.2 - TeachersPayTeachers.com


Never studied CC but it made sense what they were asking


Tom Sweetnam said:


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It's just basic arithmetic that any 7 year old could do.  Sorry if it's to much for you.


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## ricechickie (Sep 29, 2014)

I've looked at the Common Core standards, but I don't have to use any particular curriculum, as long as the children can do the work.

That's why I figured what they were asking, but I didn't recognize the particular verbiage.


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## Tom Sweetnam (Sep 29, 2014)

Threads like this go a long way in explaining why our public school systems rank dead last in the developed world...and why 40% of adults in places like Chicago are complete illiterates. All of them alumni of Common Core curriculums no doubt.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

Tom Sweetnam said:


> Threads like this go a long way in explaining why our public school systems rank dead last in the developed world...and why 40% of adults in places like Chicago are complete illiterates. All of them alumni of Common Core curriculums no doubt.


Irony ^


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 29, 2014)

Take 1 from 8 and 1 from 5, add together and get 2. Then take 4 from 7 and add it to the 2 and now you have 6. Take the 2 from 3 and add it to the 4 and now you have a 6 and a 6 and a 1. Next take a 1 from each 6 and add them to the one, now you have a 5 and a 5 and a 3. Don't take the easy route.  Next add the 5 and the 3 together and you have a 5 and an 8. Exactly where you started from but now you've transformed the 5 into an 8 and the 8 into the 5!!! (Bonus points). Now take a 3 from the 8 and add the remainder to the 5 and you have a 10 and a 3. 

Congratulations, you've given the teacher a migraine by forcing her to follow along. If she can make you jump through useless hoops then turnabout should be fair play.


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## ricechickie (Sep 29, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> Take 1 from 8 and 1 from 5, add together and get 2. Then take 4 from 7 and add it to the 2 and now you have 6. Take the 2 from 3 and add it to the 4 and now you have a 6 and a 6 and a 1. Next take a 1 from each 6 and add them to the one, now you have a 5 and a 5 and a 3. Don't take the easy route.  Next add the 5 and the 3 together and you have a 5 and an 8. Exactly where you started from but now you've transformed the 5 into an 8 and the 8 into the 5!!! (Bonus points). Now take a 3 from the 8 and add the remainder to the 5 and you have a 10 and a 3.
> 
> Congratulations, you've given the teacher a migraine by forcing her to follow along. If she can make you jump through useless hoops then turnabout should be fair play.



It's not useless.  The more kids play with numbers, the more ways they find to solve a problem, the more they understand the process.

Helluva big improvement on memorizing "8 + 5 = 13."  How do you make a thirteen?  "I don't know."  Where's the 10's place?  "What?"


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## Tom Sweetnam (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> It's just basic arithmetic that any 7 year old could do.  Sorry if it's to much for you.



Ummm...that's "too" much and "7 year-old". I see you have trouble stringing together cogent sentences like any 7 year-old could do. Common Core English graduate are we?


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## ricechickie (Sep 29, 2014)

Tom Sweetnam said:


> Threads like this go a long way in explaining why our public school systems rank dead last in the developed world...and why 40% of adults in places like Chicago are complete illiterates. All of them alumni of Common Core curriculums no doubt.





Tom Sweetnam said:


> RKMBrown said:
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> 
> > It's just basic arithmetic that any 7 year old could do.  Sorry if it's to much for you.
> ...



Do you understand that Common Core is a new thing?

It has to be, so we can blame any of its problems on Obama's evil plan to make us stupid!


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

Tom Sweetnam said:


> RKMBrown said:
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> > It's just basic arithmetic that any 7 year old could do.  Sorry if it's to much for you.
> ...


Wrong.  You use the word too when you could easily substitute the word also.  My use of the word to, was correct.  I guess you failed English and Math?


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 29, 2014)

ricechickie said:


> Rikurzhen said:
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> > Take 1 from 8 and 1 from 5, add together and get 2. Then take 4 from 7 and add it to the 2 and now you have 6. Take the 2 from 3 and add it to the 4 and now you have a 6 and a 6 and a 1. Next take a 1 from each 6 and add them to the one, now you have a 5 and a 5 and a 3. Don't take the easy route.  Next add the 5 and the 3 together and you have a 5 and an 8. Exactly where you started from but now you've transformed the 5 into an 8 and the 8 into the 5!!! (Bonus points). Now take a 3 from the 8 and add the remainder to the 5 and you have a 10 and a 3.
> ...



It's fucking useless because once you're done with these students I used to get them. This math isn't "Common Core" this math has preceded "Common Core," this math pedagogy is called Constructivist Math and it's been on the radar in different locations and districts for decades.

Take a look at what happened after Alberta implemented this same pedagogy:

We already have a preview of where all this is heading. In the 2008-09 school year, the province introduced “discovery math,” which encourages kids to find new and creative ways of solving math problems (some of them quite cumbersome) and throws standard methods out the window. *Alberta’s math scores, once among the highest in the world, promptly plunged.* In 2012, 15.1 per cent of Alberta’s students failed to meet the minimum standards on PISA’s international math test – *more than double the failure rate (7.4 per cent) in 2003*. The percentage of top-scoring students declined to 16.9 per cent from 26.8. . . .

*Just a decade ago, Alberta’s education system was the envy of the world. Americans and Europeans all came to find what they could learn from it*. Schools were free to teach students in whatever way they liked, so long as the kids scored well on standardized tests. And they did – consistently outperforming all the other provinces in science and reading as well as in math. Parents strongly supported the province’s culture of accountability.​
Here's the on-the-ground response and I've taken the time to highlight what ACTUAL MATH PROFESSORS have to say. Remember this, this pedagogy was cooked up by folks "trained" in "Math Education" which is what passes for math specialization in Education Faculties. It's very poorly validated clap-trap put out by Lefty ideologues. 

Alberta teachers, tutors and professors are standing up against the fuzzy discovery math curriculum adopted by the Alberta government.

More than 50 professors and teachers have now* signed a petition calling for a return to the conventional teaching  of arithmetic,* with a focus on students learning, practicing and mastering the basics of math in elementary school.

Here’s Dawn Arnold, a high school math teacher in Tofield. “I am seeing the results of the ‘discovery’ method coming into my senior high math classes and it is very disturbing.”

Gordon Swaters EDMONTON
In addition to having an 11 year old daughter in the school system and seeing the math she brings home, I am a *U of A Math prof* who sees the declining the ability of first year students to do basic math.

Donna Nixon ST. ALBERT
I am a junior high math teacher. More and more grade 7 students are coming in with no basic math skills – they don’t even know their basic addition and subtraction facts, never mind multiplication or division!!!

Terry Gannon EDMONTON, AB, CANADA
I am a parent of 7 year old twins, *and a math prof* at the U of Alberta. As a parent, an educator and indeed a mathematician, I know a balanced approach is fundamental. From what I have seen with my children’s education, there is no balance in mathematics education in our schools today.

Peter Zajiczek` CALGARY, CANADA
I am a* mathematics teacher* and our children are so ill-prepared for higher level mathematics it is frightening. Students need basic math facts memorized to focus on higher level concepts.

Christian Rios, Calgary
*I am a mathematician* at the University of Calgary, and I have children in the school system. Currently math education is *creating more confusion than enlightenment.* The main problem is the concept that synthesis (what they call “making sense”) may come before proficiency. This is an upside down approach to learning. Mathematics should be learned the way we learn our native language: First we memorize a few words and their basic meaning, we learn how to put together basic sentences allowing us to communicate.* Much later in this process we get to the point of analyzing syntax, parts of speech, and symbolism.*

The current approach to learning mathematics *pretends to start with the analytic stage*. This creates confusion in students, that leads to chronic frustration, and finally creates aversion to everything mathematical.

Olia Libicz Pavlin EDMONTON
I’m an ex – teacher with 2 elementary aged kids. They are not learning real math at school and I end up teaching them at home. What happens the the kids whose parents don’t like math and can’t explain math to their kids. I am very concerned with the whole* discovery way of learning* and that is why I left teaching. I have to teach my kids at home after school and there is no energy left at the end of the day to teach your own kids when you just worked with 31 kids.

Marc Van Sluys, Calgary
As a teacher, I can see the advantages of teaching math fundamentals. *Since the new math curriculum has been introduced, I have seen the slow decline of fundamental math knowledge in my students*. They struggle with simple addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division. It seems to me that as an adult, I use the above skills more than the current skills being taught by the new curriculum.

Deborah Younger, Edmonton
I am a high school math teacher. I am noticing that an* increasingly larger number of my Grade 10 students do not know basic times table facts, nor do they understand operations with fractions or integers*. These are fundamental to successful completion of most high school math courses.

Viena Stastna, Calgary
I teach Calculus 1 at the university so *I see the consequences*.

Neil Hepburn CAMROSE, CANADA
I teach undergraduate economics and *deal with the fallout from this every day.* Simple algebraic operations escape my students. *Clearly they have not “discovered” the methods.*

Phil Davidson EDMONTON
*I teach statistics* to BComm students. On average my students educated here in Alberta are way behind my foreign students in basic math skills.

Roy Sharplin, Edmonton
I am an instructor in an engineering technology program at NAIT. We are seeing an increase in students who came to NAIT with high marks in high school math but struggle in our basic technology math courses.

Noel Allin EDMONTON
I have a teaching degree and was exposed to this doctrine of *‘discovery-based learning’ back in the 1970′s*. The theory is that you will retain an answer longer and better if you ‘discover’ it yourself. *It was a confusing mishmash then*. It led to – nothing. *Get rid of this idea entirely*. Eveen at the university level there was much resistance and no fun involved in this ‘process’. International results should be more than enough to consign your experiment to the trash heap of useless learning techniques.

Corry Mortensen TILLEY
I was a mathematics teacher and I see the effects on the students I taught and on my own children. I also firmly believe that if you introduce critical thinking problems you must also teach “how” to be critical thinkers – those skills aren’t automatic. *Teaching 4 different ways to do something isn’t critical thinking*, teaching skills so students can develop their own methods and techniques is.

Hank Kalke EDMONTON, CANADA
In my career as a high school teacher of many courses including math & as an instructor at NAIT, I truly have experienced the importance of I totally agree with the “Back to the Basics: Mastering the fundamentals of mathematics” petition. As is stated, “the “new math” glares of absurdities in that *students are led through multiple convoluted “strategies” to get to a solution, with no emphasis on mastering any one method.* As a result, the importance of knowing basic math facts (eg. algorithms, time tables, automatic recalls, vertical additions) is diluted down to a weak understanding and poor grasp of basic mathematical concepts.”

Allysa Lumley LETHBRIDGE, CANADA 
I am a mathematics master student and I see a lot of people struggling to handle basic math facts at all ages. It is very upsetting. I also have a large number of friends who are teachers that have expressed concern over the lack of preparedness for the next grade.

Ioana Crisan, Calgary
I have taught principles and intermediate courses in Economics at university level for twelve years. *The inability of some of my students to solve basic equations that a Grade 5 student should be able to solve is shocking.* It is obvious that some of them are paralyzed by math. A student should not have to use a calculator to divide 72 by 9. The education system has failed these students, and I hope it is not too late for those in charge to admit that a mistake has been made and to try to correct it. I have a daughter in Grade 1 and I hope that by the time she reaches university she will have more confidence in her math skills than my current students do.​


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 29, 2014)




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## hadit (Sep 29, 2014)

ricechickie said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > Take 1 from 8 and 1 from 5, add together and get 2. Then take 4 from 7 and add it to the 2 and now you have 6. Take the 2 from 3 and add it to the 4 and now you have a 6 and a 6 and a 1. Next take a 1 from each 6 and add them to the one, now you have a 5 and a 5 and a 3. Don't take the easy route.  Next add the 5 and the 3 together and you have a 5 and an 8. Exactly where you started from but now you've transformed the 5 into an 8 and the 8 into the 5!!! (Bonus points). Now take a 3 from the 8 and add the remainder to the 5 and you have a 10 and a 3.
> ...



It is not difficult to memorize the sums of any two single digits because there are only 100, and most are trivial.  For example, adding one or zero to any other.  Once you have learned them, adding multidigit numbers becomes a simple matter.  This just looks like a solution in search of a problem, like they've given up on kids being able to memorize trivial things.


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## ricechickie (Sep 29, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


>



Terrible!  Awful!  Lots of older people learn to make change this way, but using it in a classroom is an outrage!


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## hadit (Sep 29, 2014)

ricechickie said:


> Tom Sweetnam said:
> 
> 
> > Threads like this go a long way in explaining why our public school systems rank dead last in the developed world...and why 40% of adults in places like Chicago are complete illiterates. All of them alumni of Common Core curriculums no doubt.
> ...



How much does he have to do, considering he got elected with zero accomplishments?


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## ricechickie (Sep 29, 2014)

hadit said:


> It is not difficult to memorize the sums of any two single digits because there are only 100, and most are trivial.  For example, adding one or zero to any other.  Once you have learned them, adding multidigit numbers becomes a simple matter.  This just looks like a solution in search of a problem, like they've given up on kids being able to memorize trivial things.



Memorizing things that have no meaning are of little use when it comes to understanding a process.


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## Tom Sweetnam (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> Wrong.  You use the word too when you could easily substitute the word also.  My use of the word to, was correct.  I guess you failed English and Math?



You're a moron, and if you were a public school teacher you'd be a dangerous moron.


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## hadit (Sep 29, 2014)

ricechickie said:


> hadit said:
> 
> 
> > It is not difficult to memorize the sums of any two single digits because there are only 100, and most are trivial.  For example, adding one or zero to any other.  Once you have learned them, adding multidigit numbers becomes a simple matter.  This just looks like a solution in search of a problem, like they've given up on kids being able to memorize trivial things.
> ...



It is of great use when moving on to more advanced concepts, because you're not continually getting bogged down trying to calculate for the 10th time in a row what 8 + 5 equals.  All this does is put process in where it's really not needed.  I memorized addition and multiplication tables for all the single digits.  That freed my mind up to handle algebra and calculus.


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## ricechickie (Sep 29, 2014)

hadit said:


> ricechickie said:
> 
> 
> > hadit said:
> ...



Why can't there be room for both?  When children start to add, then they need to fool around with the process of putting things together.  They need to play with numbers, see what happens when you add two positive numbers, what happens when you add two negatives, discover the patterns.  Then, they are better equipped to memorize.  Because when you memorize with a solid foundation, it's easier to know if the answer that popped into your head makes sense, or if you've memorized wrong.


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 29, 2014)

ricechickie said:


> hadit said:
> 
> 
> > It is not difficult to memorize the sums of any two single digits because there are only 100, and most are trivial.  For example, adding one or zero to any other.  Once you have learned them, adding multidigit numbers becomes a simple matter.  This just looks like a solution in search of a problem, like they've given up on kids being able to memorize trivial things.
> ...


Wrong. Memorizing allows you to see patterns, it frees up brain processing power by retrieving an answer from memory. This is where idiot constructivist go wrong. We see this same idiot leftist thought pattern in many realms. The classic example was with the mortgage debacle. Idiot leftists observed that middle class folks were homeowners and were mostly upstanding citizens. They believed causality flowed from homeowner to upstanding citizen, rather than the reverse, and so they sought to encourage blacks and Hispanics to buy homes in order to transform them into upstanding citizens. Bzzt. wrong. Same thing going on here - good students, who have already mastered the memorization, are found to develop principles, to understand the process, so idiot "education theorists" conclude that the way to develop understanding is to skip memorization and jump to the discovery phase.

The crash and burn of discovery learning shows up in inter-jurisdictional testing. See, the other epic fuck-up of these idiot "education theorists" is that their validation of their studies was piss-poor. If the FDA was validating new pharmaceuticals the way education "professionals" validate new pedagogies, we'd be releasing thalidomide-like new drugs regularly.


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 29, 2014)

ricechickie said:


> hadit said:
> 
> 
> > ricechickie said:
> ...



Because instructional time is finite and there are opportunity costs for choices that we make.


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## R.D. (Sep 29, 2014)




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## Rikurzhen (Sep 29, 2014)

ricechickie said:


> hadit said:
> 
> 
> > ricechickie said:
> ...



You have it backwards. The entire POINT of memorization is to avoid the answer validation phase. When you memorize 5 x 5 = 25, you shouldn't need to double check your answer.


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## ricechickie (Sep 29, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> Because instructional time is finite and there are opportunity costs for choices that we make.



I'm so glad that I teach the way I do.

While instructional time is still finite,  it is much more efficiently used.


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## ricechickie (Sep 29, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> You have it backwards. The entire POINT of memorization is to avoid the answer validation phase. When you memorize 5 x 5 = 25, you shouldn't need to double check your answer.



You've never misremembered something?

It's nice when something is so memorized as to become second-nature.  Before then, it's nice to not have to simply make a wild guess.


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 29, 2014)

R.D. said:


>



I've never seen that before but now I see where "Math Educators" learned their math.


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 29, 2014)

ricechickie said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > You have it backwards. The entire POINT of memorization is to avoid the answer validation phase. When you memorize 5 x 5 = 25, you shouldn't need to double check your answer.
> ...



When you have a question and an answer and a series, then you can apply your thinking to DISCOVERING a pattern.


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## Tom Sweetnam (Sep 29, 2014)

I wrote this piece 15 years ago for the now-defunct IM-UR webzine. I think it's still germane to a thread like this. At the time, Proposition 54 loomed  important in California’s upcoming election. Proposition 54 was the natural evolution of Proposition 209, the initiative that brought to an end affirmative action college entrance preferences in California.

Proposition 54 deemed to prevent the state from gathering racial information on its citizens, and went a long way in hammering the coffin lid shut once and for all on the left-wing institution of apartheid we know as “racial preferences”. This article examines the state of affirmative action in California in its last year, and opines on the 30-year litany of suicide set upon by this nation’s public school systems.

*How Asians Will Save American Education*

Four years ago I obtained transcripts for a PBS Firing Line special in which panelists from both sides of the issue discussed the looming demise of affirmative action in California. The series was timely in that sentiment brewed strongly amongst California's Asians to end race preferences in college admissions. Asians voiced their consternation through lawsuits and social activism that helped generate an initiative which was voted into law four years ago, abolishing affirmative action considerations in college admissions and state hiring. I borrowed my figures for this piece from those transcripts. Here is how California's affirmative action-based college admissions system looked in its swan song.

Admissions to UCLA in 1997 based strictly on academic merit: Asian 54% white 47% Hispanic 5% black 1.7%
Black applicants to UCLA stood better than a 98% chance that their admission would not be based on any consideration of academic ability. That same rule applied to 19 of 20 Mexican- Americans. Yet 54% of Chinese, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Indian, Pakistani, or other Asian students were considered for admission on their academic merits only. More than half of these people had to produce a high SAT score to get into UCLA. Why this anomaly then, if affirmative action deigns to help "minorities"?

Current racial metaphysics bases race favoritism on the historical record of discrimination against minorities and women, black people in particular. "Hispanics" are problematic, not only because they are the majority in California now, but because so many got here illegally or are the progeny of illegal aliens, so a history of discrimination in their case is a nebulous claim to say the least, especially since the vast majority of America's Hispanic population is quite new, most tracing their roots to Mexico within the past 50 years. Yet for many years, a child of illegal aliens from Mexico got into UCLA easier than a white student whose father was killed in action serving this nation in war. White liberals, blacks, and Hispanics never saw anything unfair in this setup, and always shouted down its detractors with charges of racism, right up until California's Asians confronted them with racial actuality.

Past discrimination is the legal justification for affirmative action in the United States. So it follows then, that Cambodian, Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Indian, Malaysian, and Pakistani immigrants to the US have long perpetrated discrimination against American blacks, Hispanics, and women...correct? This is the only basis on which affirmative action could legally be used to discriminate against these Asians, because the other very obvious yet unspoken explanation for such racial profiling by universities is that they consider blacks and Hispanics to be the racial inferiors of all other ethnic groups by a very great margin. Such a thing could never be admitted officially of course.

Average discrepancy in SAT scores at UCLA between blacks & whites: 280 points.
Average discrepancy in SAT scores at UCLA between blacks and Asians: "well over" 300 points.
No mention was made by UCLA if these scores were "race normed", but my guess is that they probably were, so I contend that the real SAT score differences between blacks and whites averages at least 380 points, and I'll further speculate that a difference of 500 points or more is the average between blacks and Asians. This is how "race norming" and "centering" works:

Race norming and centering are processes whereby blacks and Hispanics are given handicaps in scoring because of presumed handicaps of "cultural bias". Black students for instance are given a handicap of 100 points on SAT scores right off the bat. Further "centering" or adjusting of scores may follow the actual test. For many years, the major complaint of black activists (mainly the NAACP) with SAT testing, is that such tests are "culturally biased". What this charge euphemistically refers to however, is that blacks have considerable difficulty with standard language praxis.

Blacks tend to fail miserably in areas of basic language skills testing. This "cultural bias" charge began to lose credibility however, after thousands of California's Asians, many of whom had only recently learned the English language or who spoke English as a second language, inevitably scored higher on SAT English tests than did blacks for whom English is a native tongue. In fact, Asians scored higher than blacks even after blacks were given their race norming or centering scoring handicaps.

The NAACP has also charged that SAT algebra and geometry sections might be considered culturally biased as well, since so few blacks go into the difficult pure sciences, life sciences, or engineering schools in college, and tend instead to migrate en masse into the humanities, thereby making subjects like math irrelevant to their college admissions qualification. In other words, the SAT carries much of the "cultural bias" stigma that it does, because English, algebra, and geometry have been indicted by the NAACP, many Hispanics, and white liberals as being racially biased constructs. An abstract construct like algebra for instance, can actually be racist, because Algebra is hostile toward black or Hispanic understanding, in that blacks and Hispanics as cultures are perfectly willing to grasp such a thing as algebra, but so few can, therefore Algebra is a construct of hostility toward cultural acceptance, and is considered "culturally biased" toward those cultures because of it. The same may be said of geometry.

If such back flips of logic are frightening, they should be, because such thinking goes a long way in explaining why American education today is a pathetic shadow of its former self. Thirty years ago, America began its great downward slide, it's cultural "centering", seeking the lowest common denominator with which white liberal educators, blacks, and Hispanics might assuage themselves that a mainstream norm was being established in which no one's self-esteem would suffer. White liberals rationalized that blacks and Mexicans couldn't be brought up to a level of academic accomplishment considered standard at the time, so the entire system had to be dragged down to their level, to a far lower watered-down cultural norm.

And that's exactly what we have today: a pathetic amalgam of alchemy, metaphysics, and pseudoscience passing itself off as academic empiricism, that starts in public school first grade and carries through to postdoctoral studies at Harvard University. Stupidity as an educational median, where self-esteem and cultural hegemony take precedence over anything resembling intellectual scrupulosity. It's a pretend system like that of the old Soviet Union, where the cynical maxim held that people pretended to work, and the state pretended to pay them. Here we pretend to educate, and students pretend they are educated.

California's Asians wouldn't hear of it however. They were too new on the landscape to buy into a sick system based on cognitive distortion and ethnic politics, a system that shouted down any of its former detractors as bigots and racists. It was California's Asians who began to deconstruct this sham called education. It was California's Asians who showed white liberals, blacks, and Hispanics what could be accomplished when people stuck to the basics of learning and spent their time reading books, and doing physics problems, instead of devoting their lives to bellowing at the top of their lungs while playing the race card. It was California's Asians who finally embarrassed a sick system into its inevitable first stage of collapse, and no doubt, if another old maxim can be believed, one that states "As goes California, so goes the world", it will be California's Asians who halt our national plunge into an abyss of ignorance, while teaching America what excellence in learning can really be all about.

© 2001 Tom Sweetnam


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## ricechickie (Sep 29, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> ricechickie said:
> 
> 
> > Rikurzhen said:
> ...



......trusting that the information they've been given is correct.


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## boedicca (Sep 29, 2014)

Samson said:


> Zander said:
> 
> 
> > Clearly this kid is a subversive. He needs to made to understand that 1+1 = whatever the STATE decides.
> ...




Taxes.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

Tom Sweetnam said:


> RKMBrown said:
> 
> 
> > Wrong.  You use the word too when you could easily substitute the word also.  My use of the word to, was correct.  I guess you failed English and Math?
> ...


You're an ignorant POS.


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## boedicca (Sep 29, 2014)

LiberalMedia said:


> All the conservatards raging in this thread are hilarious.
> 
> "BAWWW, Y R U TEECHING KIDS A DIFFRENT WAY 2 APPROACH A PROLLEM? STICK W/ TRADITION U FASCIST"
> 
> ...




It's not a different way to approach a "problem".  It's fake math that pins the bogometer.

8+5=13

Anyone who cares about engineering, science, accounting and the like knows that Precision Matters.

Fuzzy math is for fuzzy thinking.


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## R.D. (Sep 29, 2014)

LiberalMedia said:


> All the conservatards raging in this thread are hilarious.
> 
> "BAWWW, Y R U TEECHING KIDS A DIFFRENT WAY 2 APPROACH A PROLLEM? STICK W/ TRADITION U FASCIST"
> 
> ...


Hey enlighten dipstick.

Simple addition  doesn't need new innovative ways to be solved.  That's why it's simple addition


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 29, 2014)

ricechickie said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > Because instructional time is finite and there are opportunity costs for choices that we make.
> ...



And what do you have to say about the Alberta results which arose from teaching your way?


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

R.D. said:


> LiberalMedia said:
> 
> 
> > All the conservatards raging in this thread are hilarious.
> ...


Uhmmm the associative property of addition is not new...


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## Tom Sweetnam (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> Tom Sweetnam said:
> 
> 
> > RKMBrown said:
> ...



And you sound just like a public school teacher's union goon...except in your case, you were probably a janitor.


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## Tom Sweetnam (Sep 29, 2014)

A few years ago, Forbes ranked Calgary, Alberta as the best city in the world for quality of life, of cities with a population of one million or more. Education, healthcare, transportation, crime, literacy, business infrastructure, telecommunications, etc. were some of the fourteen or so criteria on which the evaluation was based. I know one thing about Calgary and Edmonton. I know that 40% of their adult population isn't illiterate, as is the case in many of America's cities.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 29, 2014)

Tom Sweetnam said:


> RKMBrown said:
> 
> 
> > Tom Sweetnam said:
> ...


ROFL. Go read a 1st grade elementary school math book so you can stop embarrassing yourself you POS little twit.


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## R.D. (Sep 29, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> R.D. said:
> 
> 
> > LiberalMedia said:
> ...


M'ok

You make one wonder if degrees go stale


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## asterism (Sep 29, 2014)

ricechickie said:


> hadit said:
> 
> 
> > ricechickie said:
> ...



You'd have a point if the current CC method was one of many ways to learn basic arithmetic, but it's not.  It is being used as the only way which is not good.

I learned the number line method, memorization, estimation (similar to the process described in the OP), binary, base 6, and hex in grade school.  It was done quite well.  There are no Common Core lessons for different methods in grade school, just this one foreign and inefficient method.  That's why this is a problem.  It's not intuitive and it doesn't actually help later.  

Try to calculate the area underneath a curve using the Common Core arithmetic method.  Post your results.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

asterism said:


> ricechickie said:
> 
> 
> > hadit said:
> ...


Try to calculate the area underneath a curve using only memorization, post your results.


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## rightwinger (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


> LiberalMedia said:
> 
> 
> > All the conservatards raging in this thread are hilarious.
> ...


 
Actually, in real life, precision does not always matter

Most decisions come down to ....Is Option A better than Option B?

Rather than coming to a precise analysis, most decisions can be made by ballpark estimation where it is clear that Option A is clearly the better choice


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## jon_berzerk (Sep 30, 2014)

R.D. said:


> Kid Looks Like a Genius with Matter-of-Fact Retort Why Common Core Math Problem 8 5 Doesn 8217 t Add Up
> 
> 
> 
> ...




they are making a base ten 

arrive at a 10 -100-1000 

then add the remaining 

*the question asked was confusing *

the kid was correct in which way the question was asked 

they should have asked how can you arrive at 13 using a base ten 

8+2 =10 plus the remainder  3 = 13


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## asterism (Sep 30, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> asterism said:
> 
> 
> > ricechickie said:
> ...



That's a false premise because I never said that memorization only was correct.  But I can do it using only memorization.

The area under the curve y=10-x^2 between the x axis on x=-3 and x=5:

Solve for x=5 minus x=-3 using (10x-1/3x^3)

((10*5) - ((5^3/)3) - (10*-3)-((-3^3)/3))

((50-(125/3)) - ((-30)-(-27/3)))

8 +1/3 - (-21)

29 +1/3


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## Capstone (Sep 30, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> ...if you read the "teacher's" writing on the kid's paper, *what she said is perfectly clear.* ...


Apparently not. In order to make the teacher's math work, we'd have to _interpret_ "take 2 from 5" as 5-3, as in: take 2 apples from the group of 5 apples and place them in a different group of 8 apples to create a group of 10 apples. The teacher's semantics were anything _but_ clear.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

jon_berzerk said:


> R.D. said:
> 
> 
> > Kid Looks Like a Genius with Matter-of-Fact Retort Why Common Core Math Problem 8 5 Doesn 8217 t Add Up
> ...


The question was not confusing, it was out of context.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

asterism said:


> RKMBrown said:
> 
> 
> > asterism said:
> ...


Fail.  You said only use a CC method that does not apply to determining area under a curve.  You were supposed to only use equivalent math tables as per your own defined rules.  You had to go off and use a formula that has nothing to do with the math table memorization technique.  Why is that?


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

Capstone said:


> Delta4Embassy said:
> 
> 
> > ...if you read the "teacher's" writing on the kid's paper, *what she said is perfectly clear.* ...
> ...


Wrong they were perfectly clear.  Your problem is you are trying to read a sentence out of context, then blaming the writer and teacher for your mistake.


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## asterism (Sep 30, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> asterism said:
> 
> 
> > RKMBrown said:
> ...



I used memorization only to solve the problem as you demanded.  You did not demand that I only use equivalent math tables, and I didn't define any rules.  You are correct that I worded my initial demand incorrectly so I'll try again:

Try to calculate the area underneath a curve using the Common Core method for the arithmetic portion.  Post your results.


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## rightwinger (Sep 30, 2014)

Capstone said:


> Delta4Embassy said:
> 
> 
> > ...if you read the "teacher's" writing on the kid's paper, *what she said is perfectly clear.* ...
> ...


 
It is hard to tell without knowing the full context of the exercise

Like most things that cause conservative outrage in this country, we only see one question and that ONE question is used as justification to condemn ALL of Common Core

I would have to know what the lesson plan the kids were being taught, what specific skills they were trying to teach and what other questions and classroom exercises covered that material


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## Delta4Embassy (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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(raises hand from the back) What's common core?


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## martybegan (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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Keep thinking that the next time you drive over a bridge, or fly on an airplane.


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## rightwinger (Sep 30, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


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Common Core is a liberal education system that is being used to indoctrinate our children into a socialist society where they are not taught basic skills and are forced to learn about homosexuality, bizarre sexual practices and freeloading off of those who work


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## rightwinger (Sep 30, 2014)

martybegan said:


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Sometimes you need a precise calculation, other times a rough estimation is just as good

I was in Home Depot last weekend and needed to figure if I needed one or two bags of lawn fertilizer. I knew the rough dimensions of my property and about how much was taken up by the house and driveway. I figured I had "about" 12,000 sq feet to fertilize and needed two bags.

I did not need to go home and measure exactly how much grass I have


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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That's a different kind of problem involving logic.

Math is math, and should be taught as such.  Unless, of course, the entire purpose is to teach mental tricks in order to help kids guess the correct answer on prefab standardized tests without learning anything rigorous that will enable them to have a decent career later in life.


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## martybegan (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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So being lazy is now a virtue? marking off your lawn would have taken all of 10 minutes, using the "foot" method. You would have KNOWN how many bags you needed, as opposed to guessing.


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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Wow.  This is an awesome answer...and so surprising coming from you.


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## martybegan (Sep 30, 2014)

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Actually I see it as more of a program to make parents feel stupid, and unable to help their kids with their homework.


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

martybegan said:


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Marginalizing parents and building dependence on the state are typical of socialism.


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## R.D. (Sep 30, 2014)

martybegan said:


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I can see that point of view.   My take is it's a tactic  of trying to make teacher relevant again, so making parents clueless makes sense.   It also puts Homeschooling in a pinch if these foolish methods are made standard


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## rightwinger (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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 When it comes to math, mental tricks are often a useful tool. You don't always have a calculator or precise measuring tools. You go to a store and pick out eight items. You figure those items will come to "about" $16 and the $20 you have in your wallet is enough to pay for it. You do not need to calculate that it will come to $16.38 after tax.


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## rightwinger (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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 Everything I know about common core I learned from Interweb Message Boards


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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As much as I appreciate being able to figure out what I can afford based on the money in my wallet, that is a life skill that should be taught by parents (and perhaps in school).  But it's not the same as rigorous math needed for engineering etc.


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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Too bad you don't leverage the knowledge here to upgrade your understanding of economics and politics as well.


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## Yarddog (Sep 30, 2014)

R.D. said:


> Kid Looks Like a Genius with Matter-of-Fact Retort Why Common Core Math Problem 8 5 Doesn 8217 t Add Up
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GRRRRRR   the teacher must be an X IRS employee.       What morons.


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## Capstone (Sep 30, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> Wrong they were perfectly clear.  Your problem is you are trying to read a sentence out of context, then blaming the writer and teacher for your mistake.


I think you're conflating 'context' with 'clarity'.

The context is clear; the verbal portion of the teacher's response to the kid's answer is ambiguous (read: unclear), forcing the reader to appeal to the non-verbal portion of the response in order to interpret "it" correctly.


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## rightwinger (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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 I disagree

I think that estimating, using math to think on your feet and using the level of complexity a problem requires are essential math skills and more valuable to most people than learning Calculus


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## Mr. H. (Sep 30, 2014)

The problem should read "Tell how to make 10 WHILE adding 8+5". 

Why are we fucking with kids' heads like this?


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## Yarddog (Sep 30, 2014)

Mr. H. said:


> The problem should read "Tell how to make 10 WHILE adding 8+5".
> 
> Why are we fucking with kids' heads like this?





They're so hell bent on deviating from traditional education, that they're just making it up as they go along


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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Forcing kids to think that 8+5=10 is not "thinking on your feet..blah blah blah".  It's crap.


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## rightwinger (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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Without knowing the purpose of the exercise or the skills they are trying to teach, it is hard to draw a conclusion . I am sure that students learning common core do not come out believing that 8 + 5 = 10

That is the problem with rightwing hysteria. They give you one example, totally out of context and then use it as a justification to condemn all of common core


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

asterism said:


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Never having done CC I'll give it a shot..
Your arithmetic starts here:
((50-(125/3)) - ((-30)-(-27/3)))
You simplified -27/3 to -9 ... without showing your math cc would do it the same way... you then reduced -30+9 to get -21 without showing you math, cc would have the same result and do it the same way.  You then simplified 125/3 to get 41 2/3 without showing your math, cc would have the same result and do it the same way you did 120/3 = 40, 3/3 = 1, 2/3 or 41 2/3.  You then subtracted 41 2/3 from 50 without showing your math; cc would have the same results 50-40 = 10, 10- 1 = 9, 9 - 2/3 = 8 1/3.  

8 +1/3 - (-21)

You then added 21 to 8 1/3 to get 29 1/3, cc would have the same results and do it the same way.

29 +1/3


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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That's not what it teaches.  It teaches essentially that if you look at a line with 20 points on it you can clearly see that when adding 5 to 8 you pass 10 along the way before you get to 13.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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lol that's funny


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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The problem is the teaching program is lousy and doesn't result in an effective education.


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


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If that's the objective, then a proper question would be ask for the steps to calculate an answer, not this fuzzy language.

It's this type of program that has contributed to the persistent basic illiteracy for a large portion of the country.


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## rightwinger (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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Given the short time it has been around, I doubt if that conclusion can be made

Common Core is the latest rightwing boogeyman and will get the blame for all the ills of our society


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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B'loney.  Common Core is just another phase of the dumbing down of education via tighter control by the Feds for the benefits of:  Teacher Union Campaign Donations and indoctrinating placid sheeple.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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It does ask for the steps to calculate an answer... Your just reading it out of context.


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


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Not it doesn't. It is poorly worded if that was the intent.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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What part of context is confusing?  Instructions are not repeated on each and every question.  I'll repeat, you are looking at one problem on a sheet of problems.  You can't see the context of the question.  Yet, you are assuming you know what it says above that problem.


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


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One doen't MAKE 10 when adding 8 and 5.  The result is 13, not 10+3.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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I'll repeat... the question did not ask for the student to add 8 to 5 and write the result.  Nor did the question ask the student if they like the question.  How many times do we have to tell you what making 10 means Bodey?


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## R.D. (Sep 30, 2014)

8+5 
8+5 
8+5 
8+5 
8+5


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

Here for the folks that don't get it yet:

http://www.eduplace.com/parents/hmcam/reviews/pdf/2/2hmmca-cr-01-01-rt.pdf


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


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How do you make 10 with 8+5?

What a BOGUS question.  SRSLY.

But just keep repeating to yourself:  

*War is peace. 
Freedom is slavery. 
Ignorance is strength.*


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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Can you make 10, yes or no?


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


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I already know that 8 + 5 = 13.   And I know how to carry the 1.   It is not necessary to MAKE 10 to add the two numbers.


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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Where does it say it is necessary to make 10?  Explaining how to make 10 was the problem.  I'll ask you again, can you make 10, yes or no?  Do you or do you not know what the question is yet?


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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Exactly right. A pedagogy needs to be validated against results. Does is perform better? I posted upthread on Alberta's roll-out of this form of math instruction. The plummeted down the international math rankings as a result. 

I don't know WHY Alberta implemented this nonsense but I can guess - they saw that it was popular here and so they too wanted to be "progressive." What they failed to understand is that Missions #1 for the education system in Canada is different from the US. In Canada the prime mission is to educate their children as best they can while Mission #1 in the US is to close the racial achievement gap. This math pedagogy was designed to fulfill the American mission so it;'s utterly useless in Canada.

This math nonsense goes back a long way. Here is a report from 14 years ago:

Last fall the* U.S. Department of Education (DoEd) endorsed a Top 10 list of elementary and secondary mathematics programs favored by its own Mathematics and Science Expert Panel.* Five programs received “exemplary” status, and five others were named “promising.”

In write-ups of the programs on the government Web site, the panelists said this about the “promising” Everyday Mathematics for K-6:

“This enriched curriculum includes such features as problem-solving about everyday situations; linking past experiences to new concepts; sharing ideas through discussion; developing concept readiness through hands-on activities and explorations; cooperative learning through partner and small-group activities; and enhancing home-school partnerships.”

To which _San Francisco Chronicle_ columnist Debra J. Saunders responded: “*Sounds more like marriage counseling than math class.”*

Indeed, virtually all of the DoEd-blessed curricula extol the merits of “real world” or “real life” applications of math, with lots of group work, partner quizzes, student role-playing, journals with children’s entries on how they feel about math, copious use of calculators, and group estimating. That’s according to the official descriptions.

In general, the federal government’s *Top 10 are from what is called the ‘Whole Math’ genre* — a kissing cousin of Whole Language — where basic skills and teacher-directed instruction are played down in favor of pupil-led discovery, or constructivism.​The Dept. Of Education's expert panel didn't have any mathematician sitting on it, just lefty ideologues. This is a top-down invention and has been pushed from the Feds down tot he States.

The constructivist approach to mathematics has its fans, notably the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). This is the group that spurred the Whole Math movement with its 1989 standards, to which DoEd’s Top 10 adhere. . . . 

But DoEd’s* unqualified embrace* of the constructivist approach–sometimes called the “New-New Math” — prompted a counterattack by the heaviest artillery yet in the Math Wars. On November 18, 1999, *Secretary Richard Riley and staff spilled their morning coffee over a full-page Washington Post advertisement signed by 200 mathematicians, scientists, and other experts calling on Riley to withdraw the federal endorsement of the 10 math programs. Among the signers were four Nobel laureates in physics and two winners of the Fields Medal, the highest honor for mathematicians.*

The high-powered group protested the* absence of active research mathematicians from DoEd’s Expert Panel.* They also objected that DoEd’s Top-10 programs *omitted basic skills, such as multiplying multi-digit numbers and dividing fractions.*

“These programs [the Top 10] are among the worst in existence,” said Cal State/Northridge math professor David Klein, who helped draft the letter. “It would be a joke except for the damaging effect it has on children.”​And notice the Leftest whiny quality of the response:

Some of the panelists fought back. For example, Steven Leinwand *accused the 200 scholars of being interested in “math for the elite” alone. Leinwand, math consultant for Connecticut’s education department, said the NCTM and DoEd believe “math needs to empower all students.”* However, it was Leinwand who in 1994 wrote in _Education Week_ that continuing to teach children multi-digit computational algorithms was “downright dangerous.”

Although a statutory prohibition prevents DoEd from dictating curricula, Congress provided a way around that restriction in 1994 when it passed the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. Title IX called on DoEd’s Office of Educational Research and Improvement to set up Expert Panels to endorse top programs in gender equity, safe and drug-free schools, technology, and math and science. Title IX, like Goals 2000 itself, *stressed the idea of equalizing academic outcomes for all sub-groups in the student population.*

Secretary Riley commented that* NCTM has published “the prevailing standards in the country, so we thought that would make sense.” But critics see a deliberate integration of ideological agendas. The architects of NCTM’s 1989 standards declared that social injustices had given white males an advantage over women and minorities in math, and they promised NCTM’s reinvented math would equalize scores. Equality would be achieved by eliminating the “computational gate.”*

Klein argues this Whole Math approach “hurts the students with the least resources the most” by depriving them of the computational basics they need as a foundation for higher math. “If kids get a good, solid program in arithmetic, they have a good chance of learning algebra,” he explained, “and algebra’s one of the main gates into colleges.” *The Whole Math programs are based on the assumption that “minorities and women are too dumb to learn real mathematics,” he said.*​


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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This nonsense has been around since the late 80s.


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## Statistikhengst (Sep 30, 2014)

koshergrl said:


> Funny thing is, I tried to communicate with her language arts teacher, who is also the *journalism* (ha I use that term VERY loosely) teacher...she can't communicate aside from grunts and whistles. She couldn't convey an idea if I hooked up jumper cables to her nipples.


I can imagine that as something you would try,  yesiree. 

Gesendet von meinem GT-I9515 mit Tapatalk


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 30, 2014)

More from Alberta's experience. Note the call for evidence of validation studies and the lack of response. This is professional misconduct, rolling out a pedagogy before validating it.

Here’s where the issue becomes deeply troubling. For several years now, University of Manitoba math professors Robert Craigen and Anna Stokke have *repeatedly asked pro-discovery learning education bureaucrats and university professors across Western Canada for proof that this approach creates more proficiency or a deeper understanding of math.*

So far, the discovery learning advocates have come up empty. *They’ve failed to produce credible, scientifically valid research studies showing this method works as well in the classroom as does conventional teaching.*

And, remember, it was conventional instruction — an intense focus on the teaching of knowledge — that *drove Alberta schools to the top of the world educational rankings in the early 2000s.*

So why discourage or abandon teaching methods that work so well?

All the more troubling is we’ve already seen this play out with Alberta Education’s roll out of discovery math in 2008-09. Veteran teachers were suddenly discouraged from teaching standard arithmetic such as times tables, vertical addition and subtraction, and long multiplication and division. Instead, they were required to teach a newly devised form of arithmetic characterized by multiple, convoluted strategies, with students trying to discover the best strategy for themselves.

The result? In 2008-09, the last group of Grade 6 to learn math the conventional way *averaged 70 per cent on their provincial math exams.*

In 2012-13, Grade 6 kids averaged *56 per cent when tested on the new discovery learning curriculum.*

The number of* math illiterate students has now doubled in Alberta*, according to international testing. The failure rate shot up from just* 7.4 per cent in 2003 to 15.1 per cent in 2012*.​


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## ricechickie (Sep 30, 2014)

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Don't display your ignorance so proudly.  You don't know "my way" of teaching.


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## koshergrl (Sep 30, 2014)

Statistikhengst said:


> koshergrl said:
> 
> 
> > Funny thing is, I tried to communicate with her language arts teacher, who is also the *journalism* (ha I use that term VERY loosely) teacher...she can't communicate aside from grunts and whistles. She couldn't convey an idea if I hooked up jumper cables to her nipples.
> ...



Don't bore me with your weird fantasies, statist. I'm not interested in  kinky sex with you, I've told you repeatedly. I have ravtard for that.


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## rightwinger (Sep 30, 2014)

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I remember "modern math" in the early 60s

That sent the conservatives into a tizzy also


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## ricechickie (Sep 30, 2014)

Delta4Embassy said:


> (raises hand from the back) What's common core?



Common core is a set of standards that are applied nationwide.  It is NOT a curriculum.  Now, if some schools and states are purchasing and forcing teachers to use a certain curriculum, that is the problems of the schools and/or states.  Because common core is just about making the standards common to all American students.


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## ricechickie (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


> One doen't MAKE 10 when adding 8 and 5.  The result is 13, not 10+3.



*sigh*  Place value knowledge is important.  It's important to know that 13 is 10 + 3.



boedicca said:


> I already know that 8 + 5 = 13.   And I know how to carry the 1.   It is not necessary to MAKE 10 to add the two numbers.



You're not "carrying the 1."  You're carrying over 1 TEN.


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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Link?


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## rightwinger (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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rightwinger US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

rightwinger said:


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That has nothing to do with Modern Math causing anyone to go into a Tizzy in the 60s.

Again, link?


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 30, 2014)

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One of the chief ideologues pushing this nonsense is mentioned in the above excerpt, his name is Steven Leinwand. He passes himself off as an expert but I can find no evidence of where he went to school and what he earned his degrees in, his biography seems to start when he was hired as a math consultant in Connecticut.  Some other people have been following this guy too:

So why does Leinwand’s name pop up everywhere?  Looking through GE’s College Bound Program web site and JCPS’s web site on the GE Foundation grant led to my discovering this amazing set of non-accidental coincidences or congruences (which are graphically presented in the chart at the top of this diary):

The American Institutes for Research (AIR)  is funded by GE to measure the progress resulting from JCPS math curriculum changes.

Steve Leinwand as a consultant to JCPS recommended Investigations 2 (TERC), Scott Foresman publisher as the best choice for JCPS. (See portions of his memo above.)

Steve Leinwand is an author of another Scott Foresman math series. (As listed in his biography)

Steve Leinwand works for AIR.

AIR is a donor to TERC.

Scott Foresman (Pearson Achievement Solutions) and Steve Leinwand helped develop the new world class standards for JCPS. {From the JCPS world class mathematics standards working document.}

TERC  recommends the purchase of the Steve Leinwand’s book “Sensible Math: A Guide for School Leaders.”  The book provides advice on how school administrators can get their preferred math program adopted into their school.​
Every inquiry made about this program that I’m aware has made some reference to Steve Leinwand of AIR.  (as described above.)​


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

Rikurzhen said:


> More from Alberta's experience. Note the call for evidence of validation studies and the lack of response. This is professional misconduct, rolling out a pedagogy before validating it.
> 
> Here’s where the issue becomes deeply troubling. For several years now, University of Manitoba math professors Robert Craigen and Anna Stokke have *repeatedly asked pro-discovery learning education bureaucrats and university professors across Western Canada for proof that this approach creates more proficiency or a deeper understanding of math.*
> 
> ...


There have been other changes too.  Don't assume causality from just one change.  You'd have to look much deeper into immigration issues, no child left behind programs, etc.


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 30, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> Rikurzhen said:
> 
> 
> > More from Alberta's experience. Note the call for evidence of validation studies and the lack of response. This is professional misconduct, rolling out a pedagogy before validating it.
> ...



I'm pretty sure that immigrants have been heading to Alberta for over a century now, not just suddenly discovering the province in 2008.


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## rightwinger (Sep 30, 2014)

boedicca said:


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I provided the link.....I lived it

Cnservatives of the day were outraged that their trusted math by rote methodology was being challenged


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## RKMBrown (Sep 30, 2014)

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Math wasn't all by rote way back when... I've got my dad's old math books from the 50s... it's not all rote.  I think your giving too much credit to the adjective modern.


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## boedicca (Sep 30, 2014)

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Please post the link again,  Thanks!


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 30, 2014)

More from Canuck-land:

Over the next two years, Alberta is preparing what may well be the most dramatic overhaul of Canadian school curricula in modern times.

Alberta students may rank among Canada’s top tier for performance, but by 2016, officials have nevertheless vowed that the “traditional” teaching methods of textbooks-and-chalkboards will be dead, replaced instead by a unstructured system design to craft “engaged thinkers,” “ethical citizens” and “entrepreneurial spirits.”

*“We’re changing everything,”* says a perky voice in a two-minute Government of Alberta video outlining the new program.

“We’re preparing [students] for a future we can’t imagine, and giving them the tools to succeed in work that doesn’t yet exist.”

While Alberta is the most prominent example, it is only one of many recent converts to the concept of “discovery learning,” a system in which students would be left to learn on their own, with minimal teacher guidance. But as planners enthusiastically advocated to take the fire-axe to more than a century of classroom norms, a cadre of opponents are warning that,* without sufficient evidence*, these schools may be making a terrible mistake.​This is a deadly combination. Take education specialists, usually arising from the dumbest students on college campuses and taught by the dumbest of faculty, park them in government bureaucracies where they're insulated from the consequences of failure, give them authority because they're "specialists" (who don't seem to need to assess evidence of the efficacy of reforms if they like the ideology behind the reform) and you get what is happening all over Canada and the US:

“It’s sort of the latest thing; there was hula-hooping, skateboarding and roller skating, and now there’s ‘21st century education,’” said University of Manitoba math professor Robert Craigen, a prominent critic of discovery learning. . . . .

While Ontario soon introduced its own similar math program,* Quebec, in typical contrarian fashion, specifically mandated that its teachers ignore the Canadian trend in math education.*

For critics of discovery learning, the results of the OECD’s latest comparison of worldwide student performance speaks for itself: *While Canada’s math performance has been slipping since 2006, Quebec’s has held steady.*

As of 2013, overall Canadian mathematic talent ranked alongside the like of Poland, Estonia and Belgium, while La Belle Province held court with math giants like Macao and Japan.

In Manitoba, it was Mr. Craigen, as well as University of Winnipeg math professor Anna Stokke, who recently led the charge to have the WNCP system overturned, and a “back to basics” program installed in its place.​The Quebec situation provides a classic of experimental design - change one factor in some groups and compare to a control group which didn't institute the same change. Performance slips in Ontario with the change but not in Quebec which didn't institute reform. Do you think idiot "education specialists" in the bureaucracies are influenced by what happened? Not at all, look at Alberta still charging ahead with their reforms even though there is no evidence that they work and the evidence of failure is accumulating:

The persistent argument of Mr. Craigen and his supporters is that while discovery learning sounds nice, it has no scientific backing. That, just like Coca Cola’s 1985 decision to throw out its century-old recipe in favour of New Coke, the likes of Alberta are betting their entire education system on an unproven concept.

Mr. Craigen is far from the first academic to say as much.* In 2006, a team of three educational researchers — hailing from California, Australia and the Netherlands — combed through more than 100 “empirical studies” on discovery learning to see if it worked.* Their verdict, published in the journal Educational Psychologist, was unequivocal.

“After a half-century of advocacy associated with instr*uction using minimal guidance, it appears that there is no body of research supporting the technique,*” they wrote.

A particularly “distressing” finding, according to the researchers, was that students appeared to love discovery learning, “even though they learn less from it.”

More recently, a study led by the City University of New York *conducted a meta-analysis of 164 studies on discovery learning, and concluded that “unassisted discovery does not benefit learners.*”​Imagine if the FDA approved drugs in this fashion. No clinical trials needed at all, no evidence that the drug will work as promised. Just a promise that it will work is all that is needed to release the drug and then wait and see how many patients are harmed after they use the drug. Remember, education specialists are drawn from the bottom of the intellectual barrel:

Teachers, instead of being instructors, would be an  “architect of learning — one who plans, designs and oversees learning activities.

*The report even opened with a detailed illustration of what this future would look like: Chipo, a new student from Zimbabwe, enrolls in an Alberta public school. After introducing herself, she uses a wrist-mounted digital projector to give the class a real-time tour of her home village.


Following along, classmates become immediately intrigued by the sight of an “mbira” (thumb piano).


After happily dancing to its captivating strains, they get to work drafting a 3D model of their own mbira and ultimately creating “a performance piece that they share with other classes at the next school assembly,” it reads.*

“Our packed curriculum stifles creativity in the classroom,” Alberta Education Minister Jeff Johnson told Postmedia this week. He added “there’s too much stuff to try to get through and it doesn’t allow enough flexibility to individualize learning, which is going to be really key in the future.”​Leftists are such fucking idiots I can't believe that they mastered breathing on their own.

On Thursday, Alberta Premier Alison Redford promised that the reforms would be “exciting” and “transformative.”​


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## HenryBHough (Sep 30, 2014)

Today's children don't need math.

The only jobs available in post-Obama America are at McDonald's and they have cash registers with pictures on them and that compute totals and even provide pictures of the change required.


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## Rikurzhen (Sep 30, 2014)

Background on reforms. Back in the days before Brown vs. the Board of Education, this is what America's schools taught:

*Until the 1950's, students studied Euclidian geometry in high school*. Starting with a small number of axioms, they proved and watched the teacher prove many theorems. In this way they were provided with _extensive_ training in deductive reasoning._Students learned that a statement in plane geometry was true because they had seen a proof of its validity._Since then, 100 theorems have been renamed axioms and their proofs (now being redundant) have disappeared from the textbooks._Now a statement is true in plane geometry because the book/teacher says it is so_ (It is an axiom.). Deductive proofs have been exiled to the last quarter of the textbook; not enough for students to learn this topic. The teaching of deductive proofs in plane geometry is banned in the Montgomery County school system.Students now arrive in college with little or no training in deductive reasoning, a serious educational handicap.

Prof. Barry Simon,Chairman of the Mathematics Department at California Institute of Technology in, "A Plea in Defense of Euclidian Geometry "[11] , "mourned this loss of what was a core part of education forcenturies."as he noted "what is really important is the exposure to clear and rigorous arguments. ... *"They can more readily see through the faulty reasoning so often presented in the media and by politicians". Also, they would have less difficulty adjusting to and understanding college courses. . . . . *

The Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) concluded that the major reasons for the low achievement in mathematics in U.S. schools, are that_ the mathematics curriculum is underachieving, very repetitive,ineffective and inefficient.__[13*]*_*My children (in the fast academic track) were taught one third less mathematics in high school than I was (in the standard academic track) in the 1950s.*[14]Serious training in deductive proofs and word problems have disappeared.Prof. Barry Simon noted:* "The dumbing down of high school education in the United States, especially in mathematics and science, is a crime that must be laid at the doorstep of the educational establishment".
*​Keep in mind the mission of American Education - the mission is focused on closing the racial achievement gap. Lowering standards is a well understood tactic if one aims to decrease proficiency gaps. The gap closes by sacrificing the performance of the top students.

The Reform movement was largely organized by professors of mathematics education. It advocates much use of hand calculators, no drill, emphasizes on concepts, group learning, students discovering mathematics for themselves which includes much conjecturing, students inventing their own algorithms for arithmetic, equity, mathematics education for all. . . .

While there is variety in reform, we can still talk about the Reform movement as the movement exemplified by the NCTM standards and some of its spokesmen and textbooks. This broad brush approach will misrepresent some of its participants.

*Steven Leinwand* is the co-chairman of the U. S. Dept. of Education's Expert Panel (on textbooks) and the *top mathematics advise*r at Connecticut's Department of Education.In his article "It's Finally Time to Abandon Computational Algorithms"[15], he began:

"It's time to confront those nagging doubts about continuing to teach our students computational algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division [like 23 x 37].* It's time to acknowledge that teaching these skills to our students is not only unnecessary, but counterproductive and downright dangerous! *And it's time to proclaim that, for many students, real mathematical power, on the one hand, and facility with multi-digit pencil and paper computational algorithms, on the other hand, *may be* mutually exclusive.​
"Today, real people in real situations regularly put finger to button and make critical decisions about which buttons to press, not where and how to carry threes into hundreds columns."

"No longer simply perpetuators of the bell curve, where only some survive and even fewer truly thrive, schools and their mathematics programs* must instill understanding and confidence in all*". ...​Most compelling to Leinwand is the "sense of failure and the pain unnecessarily imposed on hundreds of thousand of students in the name of mastering these obsolete procedures".​
There's Leinwand again, like a bad penny. He speaks like an evangelist, not as a scientific assessor of facts. He's preaching the gospel. Notice the bolded "may be" -  he's advocating a reform and it's all based on supposition, he doesn't even KNOW whether mathematical power and computation algorithms ARE mutually exclusive, he hedges and states that they may be. Then, finally, we get to the goal, every student must have understanding and confidence. It's about feelings and self-esteem. The surest way of achieving this is to dumb everything down so that all can pass.

The Reform movement also advocates an "integrated curriculum" which mixes algebra and geometry. This makes as much sense as the teaching of European history and American History in alternate months.

Dr. Jerome Epstein gave the following (pre-algebra) problem to such a second-year "integrated" algebra and geometry class.*It was solved by none of the (mostly Grade 10) students.*

*Problem 3*. Solve x/2 = (3/4)x +1.

The reform movement professors of *mathematics education* largely organized and wrote The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards in the late 1980s. The NCTM is the professional society of school mathematics teachers. Their standards and the AAAS criteria are for all students; *there is no separate higher standards for students going on to college.* When adopted by a school system, Reform methods and textbooks are *used for all students even though this is a dumbing down for college bound students.*

The NCTM response, to the low level of students skill at using fractions,* has been to prescribe decreased attention to fractions in algebra. . . . 
*
In Oct. 1998, the NCTM released its Proposed Principles and Standards (for the next decade).This revision is less revolutionary then its earlier Standards.It has invited much feedback from a wide variety of organizations and individuals.The final version will be released at the NCTM convention this spring.

The verbose, 700 page NCTM proposed standards *do not even consider the question of raising the content of the mathematics curriculum back to the levels of the 1950s. . . . 
*
The proposed NCTM Principles are very verbose about *emphasizing the importance of equity*. During the last 3 decades much equity has been achieved in mathematics education as good consequences of the civil rights and feminist movements.In addition, *much equity has been achieved by the easy, cheap method of dumbing down the mathematics curriculum*. If the proposed NCTM standards are implemented, more equity will be achieved by simply dumbing down the mathematics curriculum. Programs like Pat Campbells should be the rule, the reality is that they are the exception.* . . .

"They really don't know anything about mathematics,*" said David Klein, a mathematics professor at California State University, North Ridge, and co-author of the letter to Riley, as he noted that* the number of freshmen needing remedial help in the California state university system has doubled over the past 10 years. *Two years ago, California stepped back from the reforms, mandating more pencil-and-paper calculating and traditional drill and practice mathematics.​


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## n0spam4me (Oct 1, 2014)

Big Brother sez 2+2=5 ....... all hail BIG BROTHER!

Do we think for ourselves, or?

BTW: Big Brother is a Voyeur!


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## rightwinger (Oct 1, 2014)

If I have eight dollars in one pocket and five dollars in the other, do I have enough to buy something for $10?


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## n0spam4me (Oct 1, 2014)

"*A conservative, a liberal and a CEO enter a room. There are ten cookies on the table. The CEO takes nine and whispers to the conservative......Liberals trying to take your cookie"*

*Fascinating Captain.....
Fascinating ..... *


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## RKMBrown (Oct 1, 2014)

rightwinger said:


> If I have eight dollars in one pocket and five dollars in the other, do I have enough to buy something for $10?


That would depend on where your pockets are.


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## HenryBHough (Oct 1, 2014)

rightwinger said:


> If I have eight dollars in one pocket and five dollars in the other, do I have enough to buy something for $10?



Depends.

No, I don't mean new undies.

Depends on whether the seller wants $10 in gold or will settle for the funny-money Obama has given you in place of real American dollars.


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## Samson (Oct 1, 2014)

rightwinger said:


> If I have eight dollars in one pocket and five dollars in the other, do I have enough to buy something for $10?




Not if you qualify for government free cheese.


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## Capstone (Oct 2, 2014)

rightwinger said:


> If I have eight dollars in one pocket and five dollars in the other, do I have enough to buy something for $10?


Not without breaking one of the remaining 3 dollars to cover the tax.


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## emilynghiem (Oct 2, 2014)

rightwinger said:


> If I have eight dollars in one pocket and five dollars in the other, do I have enough to buy something for $10?



Yes, and some change.
After which, other people will bug you:
"How's that change working out for you?"


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## oldfart (Oct 2, 2014)

Does it really take 187 posts to figure out that "arithmetic" is a base ten number system, and that if you learn the algorithm, a parallel algorithm will work in other base systems, like binary or base 12, which are also in common use?


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## rightwinger (Oct 2, 2014)

oldfart said:


> Does it really take 187 posts to figure out that "arithmetic" is a base ten number system, and that if you learn the algorithm, a parallel algorithm will work in other base systems, like binary or base 12, which are also in common use?



No...they are still stuck on 8 + 5 does not equal 10

Common core does not teach kids to add


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## RKMBrown (Oct 2, 2014)

rightwinger said:


> oldfart said:
> 
> 
> > Does it really take 187 posts to figure out that "arithmetic" is a base ten number system, and that if you learn the algorithm, a parallel algorithm will work in other base systems, like binary or base 12, which are also in common use?
> ...


They can't even figure out what the question is.


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## Statistikhengst (Oct 3, 2014)

rightwinger said:


> oldfart said:
> 
> 
> > Does it really take 187 posts to figure out that "arithmetic" is a base ten number system, and that if you learn the algorithm, a parallel algorithm will work in other base systems, like binary or base 12, which are also in common use?
> ...




LOL.

I was doing base 12, base 14, and so on when I was in the 5th grade, in the mid-70s, long before common core. But that's all Obama's fault.

Righties really lack any zeal for learning. They don't understand that there is more than one way to learn something.

Now, I am all for flashcards - I use them with my daughter. But then I also find creative ways to get her to think anew about numbers with games in the car.

You see, Righties still haven't grasped that with such an easy question about how to make 8 + 5 = 10, the questioners are getting children to *make their own equations and along the way*, they will also have provided their own proof and along the way, they will have made their own mental flashcard. But fuck that, why should kids learn when Righties can bellyache about gubmint interference and ZOG and 666 and all that cool stuff?


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## jon_berzerk (Oct 3, 2014)

the math problem is still an issue i see 

--LOL


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## emilynghiem (Oct 3, 2014)

Zander said:


> Common Core is inane.
> 
> If you are traveling down the road and need to make a right turn what should you do? Common Core tells them - Don't make a right!! You should make 2 left turns, a U-turn, another U-turn, then one more left!! See how easy that was?



OK so THAT's who designed my GPS!
I was wondering why it always does that, Thanks!


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## emilynghiem (Oct 3, 2014)

RKMBrown said:


> Sigh... ok
> 
> Long math:
> *
> ...



I think RKMB's post explains what the POINT of this exercise was about:
how to add by 10's and separate the one's before adding those together.

The question was poorly worded, and not suited for "explaining in writing" as the teacher tried as well.

There is no substitute for direct TWO-WAY interaction between teachers and students ONE on ONE,
and not rely on "overexplaining" in textbooks or tests to convey these concepts in a "one way" format as here.

Clearly this requires some interaction and is not a 2D process.

We need to lower the student-teacher ratio closer to 10:1 and quit
trying to substitute some universal "catch-all" curricula for effective teaching and interaction with students.

When we "get smart" and quit wasting 50K a year per person to be warehoused in prisons,
we'll have plenty of money to hire and train enough competent caring teachers to work "one on one"
to make sure EACH kid stays connected and doesn't give up, fall through the cracks, and end up on welfare or in prisons. Duh!


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## RKMBrown (Oct 4, 2014)

Statistikhengst said:


> rightwinger said:
> 
> 
> > oldfart said:
> ...


It's not a left/right thing, dumb ass.  I'm a math major and I'm a conservative.  The problem with people like you is they see one or two dumb asses and they assume those dumb asses represent an entire group.


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## RKMBrown (Oct 4, 2014)

emilynghiem said:


> RKMBrown said:
> 
> 
> > Sigh... ok
> ...


The question was not poorly worded if you know what "make 10" means.  This is another case of we need to have a common understanding of terms before having a conversation.  Otherwise we can't talk to each other without getting angry and calling each other stupid.  You are correct that I pointed to "carry the ten" language to try to spark a lightbulb with some of the you can't "make ten" from 8+5 crowd.  I was hoping that by showing them how they were taught to carry the ten that they would understand long division makes ten... thus this new cc math is really just another way to explain long addition.


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