So I received an email from my sons school asking me to attend a training revolving around the new common core math they are trying to shove down their throats. Here is my response to the ENTIRE district administration, as well as the local new stations. We need to make our voices heard and tell anyone who will listen! Megan & Terri, Im sorry, but I disagree with this Common Core Math system. There is a reason only 45 states adapted it and Indiana has already dropped it. I think we need to get back to the basics, just like you and I were taught growing up. I will not be attending this training as I cannot support something that is an odd pedagogical agenda, based on a belief that conceptual understanding must come before practical skills can be mastered. As this thinking goes, students must be able to explain the why of a procedure. Otherwise, solving a math problem becomes a mere calculation and the student is viewed as not having true understanding. This approach not only complicates the simplest of math problems; it also leads to delays. Under the Common Core Standards, students will not learn traditional methods of adding and subtracting double and triple digit numbers until fourth grade. (Currently, most schools teach these skills two years earlier.) The standard method for two and three digit multiplication is delayed until fifth grade; the standard method for long division until sixth. In the meantime, the students learn alternative strategies that are far less efficient, but that presumably help them understand the conceptual underpinnings. True habits of mind develop with time and maturity! An algebra student, for instance, can take a theoretical scenario such as John is 2 times as old as Jill will be in 3 years and express it in mathematical symbols. In lower grades, this kind of connection between numbers and ideas is very hard to make. The Common Core standards seem to presume that even very young students can, and should, learn to make sophisticated leaps in reasoning, like little children dressing in their parents clothes. Yet, at the end of the day, your administrator will only care that your students perform well on the current standardized assessment used by your state. Their ability to promote depends on it. The new pedagogical truth is that we have politicized learning and now focus mainly on improving test scores on under performing subgroups using marginally relevant assessment assessing mastery of marginally relevant curriculum! Sincerely, Nathan Prodell
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 17:01:02 +0000
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