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> 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 l

> 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.
  - daxfohl 7y ago
    I somewhat think the opposite though. When you're given ten ways to do it, then it's information overload and you end up just memorizing those ten ways. When you're given one way to do it then not only do you have a way to do it that will always work, but also it leaves your brain ready to find further ways to do it on its own. And that's how thing start to make sense and stick. Basically, I think for good students, CC just makes them memorize stuff they'd come up with on their own, and for poor students it creates too much confusion such that memorization isn't even effective anymore.

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.
- daxfohl 7y ago
  I somewhat think the opposite though. When you're given ten ways to do it, then it's information overload and you end up just memorizing those ten ways. When you're given one way to do it then not only do you have a way to do it that will always work, but also it leaves your brain ready to find further ways to do it on its own. And that's how thing start to make sense and stick. Basically, I think for good students, CC just makes them memorize stuff they'd come up with on their own, and for poor students it creates too much confusion such that memorization isn't even effective anymore.