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The problem with Common Core, in my experience, has not been the math itself. It's the textbooks. The workbooks. The stubborn teachers. Math is math. Knowing m
by debacle 11y ago
The problem with Common Core, in my experience, has not been the math itself. It's the textbooks. The workbooks. The stubborn teachers.
Math is math. Knowing more than one way to solve 345 * 14 is a valuable skill. I would rather my children learn it on a whiteboard than from a workbook, and I think generally the quality of the modern texts is very poor for actually teaching math.
I also think the teachers are bemoaning the Common Core much more than they need to. Explicitly teaching the algorithms for mental math is important. Learning how to do the lattice method, even if it's not the preferred method for multiplication, is important. I've talked to far too many teachers who have complained unendlingly about the weakness of the standard, and all that the kids are being forced to learn. It feels very much like a "This is change and change is bad." mentality.
Disclaimer: I haven't encountered the Common Core as a parent at a high school level yet.
- Asbostos 11y agoTeachers will complain about absolutely every change that's imposed on them. Perhaps it's because there isn't really an undeniable way to know what's good and what's bad (unlike most jobs where profits make that clear) so every teacher assumes what they're doing it good and any change must therefore be bad. Or maybe it's just a job that attracts people with that kind of personality.
- bsder 11y ago> Teachers will complain about absolutely every change that's imposed on them. Often for good reason. Remember "new math"? Most of my math textbooks as a kid had things about ordinality and arithmetic in non-base 10 (generally base-12--why?--I have no idea) down as far as like Grades 4 or 5. It turns out that if you don't have a very clear grasp of your own arithmetic, you can't change bases very easily. Teachers who have been around for 20+ years have seen bad education fads through several cycles.
- angdis 11y agoI've looked at some recent high school algebra textbooks. What a disaster. These books are literally written by committee, the "author's" page in the front has a dozen headshots complete with bios. The content inside the book is a mishmash of color photographs, historical information, brain teasers and junk. The texts are distracting and takes away from what SHOULD BE an uncluttered exposition of the basics of mathematical reasoning.
- userbinator 11y agoI suppose it's just a result of "maths is boring" complaints, hence the attempt to make things a bit more attention-grabbing, but I agree that it distracts from the actual content. Maths does need deep thought and reasoning, which more plain textbook design facilitates. I remember using the books of Durell[1] when I was in school, and those were definitely quite plain. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._V._Durell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._V._Durell