Ive seen a few posts about common core today and tried doing some searching on my behalf to find out what its all about. All I know is I cant help my kids with homework because my way is different than theirs. So, right off the bat, as a parent, I view this as bad because it puts my kids in a disadvantage because they cant get help outside of school hours. Ive read a few articles and watched the video below and have formulated my own opinion about common core (surprise - I have an opinion! :) ) First, before my opinion, a quick background of my math expertise: I got math growing up. I was lazy and didnt do well in the subject but I understood it and could do it the old way So fair warning, I was already biased when I watched this video. So, I watched the video and lo and behold, I still feel its inefficient vs the old way He states the old way is a shortcut and honestly he was really selling how inefficient the old way was by making throw-away comments about the process like confusing numbers being written up top and erased and how confusing it is to move the place holder over to the tens column, etc. He also didnt explain WHY the old way was done the way it was. He DID go into detail about the new (or common core) way both the numerical equation as well as the visual. So while Im biased to the old way, Dr. Shah was equally biased with the new way Now, he dismissed the teachings of the old way saying basically you just had to learn the how because the teachers never explained the why and this is where I whole-heartedly disagree. Now, when I rode my dinosaur to and from school, my teachers actually DID explain the why. The ones column, the tens column, etc, etc. They explained why we put the numbers above the equation and add to it after solving for that particular column. Now, I cant say if teachers today are teaching this way or not because I think most, if not all are teaching the ccmath version - which to be fair, if they taught like Dr. Shah did in the video, DO actually explain the why. But mostly what the video taught me was not which way is better over the other, but just like how he glossed over the old and explained the new, it all boils down to how its taught (GASP! Shocking, I know) Giving teachers proper resources to TEACH, rather than prepare for standardized testing, etc is a completely separate subject, but I feel this boils down to resources (more specifically, lack thereof) and when you teach a child a new way of doing things when the parents have absolutely no clue how to help them, thats just another resource eliminated from the student to succeed. So, what do we do? Teach the parents? That only works for some, but trying to glean in 30 minutes what kids are learning for for weeks is hardly giving the parents a fighting chance to help them. Allow the kids to fail? That is, if they have homework, dont understand it and have no resources to help them with said homework - allow them to return to class the next day, have resources at their disposal to help them understand and finish and allow them to turn in their homework late without being penalized. Kids shouldnt be punished when they try and cant. Granted, late work with no penalties opens another can of worms for those who simply choose to not do work on time. Revert back to the old way? Helps the parents to help their kids. And as long as the time is used in the classroom to explain the WHY - like they use currently to help explain the why with ccmath then I think this is the solution. Remember, Im biased to the old way but until someone explains to me why one version is better over the other AS LONG AS PROPER RESOURCES ARE USED TO EXPLAIN WHY, I am all for it. Good night, did I just write all this during my lunch break?
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 19:31:33 +0000
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