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First of all, could someone enlighten the non-US readers about what common core is? I hear the term a lot, not clear what the main ideas actually are or how peo

First of all, could someone enlighten the non-US readers about what common core is? I hear the term a lot, not clear what the main ideas actually are or how people view it. My own kids go to private schools in the UK. None of the parents would have any problems buying a load of tablets or VR goggles or whatever if the schools said so, and the schools would not have any problems buying whatever manner of gadgets they thought were needed. These are schools that have historically fed kids to top secondary schools in the area, which in turn feed into the top universities in the country, and the world. And yet, the classroom is more or less just like the ones I attended as a kid in the 1980s. Bunch of chairs for little people and letters and numbers made from paper cutouts. The blackboard is one of those big touchscreens but it's used mostly like a blackboard. It's a screen for showing videos only when the kids are in after-school care waiting for parents to come get them. The kids start to read the year they turn 5, and the big kid who is three years in can mostly read an Economist article. Math-wise it's going fine as well. As a programmer I'd love it if the kids could learn some of what I do, and there's plenty of interest, but essentially the article is right. The point isn't to make little workers who can write an insertion sort. If you are educated, and you wind up in a place where that's needed, it won't take you all that long to figure out. We've somehow missed the point of education. It isn't to create specific skills that are useful for businesses. The point is to have an understanding of our place in the world, a vast context that encompasses a huge range of topics. If you do that, you will come across those specific skills, and much more.

SolarNet 7y ago
> First of all, could someone enlighten the non-US readers about what common core is? A new set of standards for education that are meant to cut across state lines (e.g. California and Texas previously set education standards merely through market volume and being the biggest purchasers). It's mostly fine. A lot of people are upset that they "changed how math works" but what they really did was introduce a bunch of different ways for students to think about math so they can get a working math literacy. Instead of being a prescriptive standards ("this is how math works") its more descriptive ("here are a dozen ways one could reason about math to get the answer"). The hope is that this will allow students to better pick up and understand more advanced math in the future, while also providing more opportunities for struggling students to "get it" (e.g. because one example worked for them). > As a programmer I'd love it if the kids could learn some of what I do, and there's plenty of interest, but essentially the article is right. The point isn't to make little workers who can write an insertion sort. If you are educated, and you wind up in a place where that's needed, it won't take you all that long to figure out. I think the important thing, instead of learning how to program insertion sort, or even to program (except perhaps as an extra class), is learning how to reason about basic computing ideas. Explaining basic ideas like Turing Completeness (and the related ideas of no way to control how another device does things impacts on sharing always meaning copying is possible), NP Hardness (allowing people to reason about how computers actually work, it can only brute force and do clever math, what it can and can't know), cryptography (trust and privacy), and what software engineering vs. programming is (like, discuss the size of code bases, where bugs come from, programming as vocational skill like cooking or writing that is also useful in other fields, etc).
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  > what they really did was introduce a bunch of different ways for students to think about math so they can get a working math literacy. Instead of being a prescriptive standards ("this is how math works") its more descriptive ("here are a dozen ways one could reason about math to get the answer"). The hope is that this will allow students to better pick up and understand more advanced math in the future, while also providing more opportunities for struggling students to "get it" (e.g. because one example worked for them). This strikes me as particularly intelligent an approach. That's one of my top 5 complains about my time in school — born in 2982, graduated HS in 2000. I had great fluency in math because my father basically tutored me in math/physics from 7~16 y.o., so I could help my friends "getting it" usually with a simple drawing or some other approach (and lots, lots of examples to "see" it). If public education is finally trying to solve this problem, we might have much higher math and logical literacy in future generations. The benefit might be huge in all regards, especially political and social. IMHO.
- daxfohl 7y ago
  My eldest is in first grade and so far I'm not a fan of the Common Core math. I could make a cynical conspiracy argument that much of it is designed around promotion of the type of technology presented in the article. "Carry the one" is the simplest thing to explain with a pencil and a blank piece of paper. All the additional Common Core techniques seem to require some kind of visual representation, either via the games sold to the schools and onward to the parents, or via the overpriced blocks promoted to teach these techniques. Yeah you could draw it all out, but geesh you end up doing 90% drawing and 10% teaching. Whether it ends up helping students is moot; it helps put money into a lot of lobbyists' pocketbooks. In fact, now that I think about it, I find myself probably believing it. Even when I'm trying to be positive about it, I find it a bit backwards. I think giving beginning students a dozen ways to reason about the answer only adds to the confusion. IMO the better teaching method is give them one way to get the answer. Once they've mastered that, then start looking at additional ways to reason about it.
  - sethammons 7y ago
    What if the "one way" doesn't work for some students where an alternative way does? What if the "one way" is interpreted as the only way? A large complaint about math from students (pre common core) is that there is too much memorization. "Is x^1 or x^0 1, or was it 0?" When math is a bunch of memorizations, students can't apply it outside of canned prompts. The goal is to build mathematical literacy and understanding in a way that is accessible to more students than the "one way." Time will tell if common core gets us in the right direction.

SolarNet 7y ago

> First of all, could someone enlighten the non-US readers about what common core is? A new set of standards for education that are meant to cut across state lines (e.g. California and Texas previously set education standards merely through market volume and being the biggest purchasers). It's mostly fine. A lot of people are upset that they "changed how math works" but what they really did was introduce a bunch of different ways for students to think about math so they can get a working math literacy. Instead of being a prescriptive standards ("this is how math works") its more descriptive ("here are a dozen ways one could reason about math to get the answer"). The hope is that this will allow students to better pick up and understand more advanced math in the future, while also providing more opportunities for struggling students to "get it" (e.g. because one example worked for them). > As a programmer I'd love it if the kids could learn some of what I do, and there's plenty of interest, but essentially the article is right. The point isn't to make little workers who can write an insertion sort. If you are educated, and you wind up in a place where that's needed, it won't take you all that long to figure out. I think the important thing, instead of learning how to program insertion sort, or even to program (except perhaps as an extra class), is learning how to reason about basic computing ideas. Explaining basic ideas like Turing Completeness (and the related ideas of no way to control how another device does things impacts on sharing always meaning copying is possible), NP Hardness (allowing people to reason about how computers actually work, it can only brute force and do clever math, what it can and can't know), cryptography (trust and privacy), and what software engineering vs. programming is (like, discuss the size of code bases, where bugs come from, programming as vocational skill like cooking or writing that is also useful in other fields, etc).

K0SM0S 7y ago
> what they really did was introduce a bunch of different ways for students to think about math so they can get a working math literacy. Instead of being a prescriptive standards ("this is how math works") its more descriptive ("here are a dozen ways one could reason about math to get the answer"). The hope is that this will allow students to better pick up and understand more advanced math in the future, while also providing more opportunities for struggling students to "get it" (e.g. because one example worked for them). This strikes me as particularly intelligent an approach. That's one of my top 5 complains about my time in school — born in 2982, graduated HS in 2000. I had great fluency in math because my father basically tutored me in math/physics from 7~16 y.o., so I could help my friends "getting it" usually with a simple drawing or some other approach (and lots, lots of examples to "see" it). If public education is finally trying to solve this problem, we might have much higher math and logical literacy in future generations. The benefit might be huge in all regards, especially political and social. IMHO.
daxfohl 7y ago
My eldest is in first grade and so far I'm not a fan of the Common Core math. I could make a cynical conspiracy argument that much of it is designed around promotion of the type of technology presented in the article. "Carry the one" is the simplest thing to explain with a pencil and a blank piece of paper. All the additional Common Core techniques seem to require some kind of visual representation, either via the games sold to the schools and onward to the parents, or via the overpriced blocks promoted to teach these techniques. Yeah you could draw it all out, but geesh you end up doing 90% drawing and 10% teaching. Whether it ends up helping students is moot; it helps put money into a lot of lobbyists' pocketbooks. In fact, now that I think about it, I find myself probably believing it. Even when I'm trying to be positive about it, I find it a bit backwards. I think giving beginning students a dozen ways to reason about the answer only adds to the confusion. IMO the better teaching method is give them one way to get the answer. Once they've mastered that, then start looking at additional ways to reason about it.
- sethammons 7y ago
  What if the "one way" doesn't work for some students where an alternative way does? What if the "one way" is interpreted as the only way? A large complaint about math from students (pre common core) is that there is too much memorization. "Is x^1 or x^0 1, or was it 0?" When math is a bunch of memorizations, students can't apply it outside of canned prompts. The goal is to build mathematical literacy and understanding in a way that is accessible to more students than the "one way." Time will tell if common core gets us in the right direction.