4 ms·

> The best fun things are maker projects. The tangible outcome is understandable to people. The educational content/value varies though. Yeah, every parent th

> The best fun things are maker projects. The tangible outcome is understandable to people. The educational content/value varies though. Yeah, every parent these days seems to have the attitude "god forbid we teach more than one algorithm for addition, but it's unacceptable that you don't have CS in middle school!" And even get outright angry if you try to point out that teaching more than one algorithm that meets the specifications of addition over naturals is CS. But have the kids "build" some kit robot and you're a damn hero. The most frustrating thing about education is trying to explain to voters why their child has to learn something (at a young age) that the parent doesn't understand. You see this a lot in parental complaints about Common Core math. Over-involved stay-at-home moms who still can't add double digit numbers without using their fingers will complain that they don't understand their first grader's math homework. The point of the math homework is to teach mental math strategies for adding numbers together. Also, parents of fifth grade kids who are frustrated that they can't help their kids understand conditional probabilities, and express that frustration by telling us to "stop teaching their kids about gambling". It's impossible as a school board member to say "look, it's embarrassing that 10 year old German kids are better than you at math. Sorry we failed you. We're trying to do better by your kid."

Spooky23 6y ago
The ignorance around math is amazing to me. When I went to a public school in NYC in the 80s, I had 1960s textbooks and a pretty poor initial math literacy — I struggled into middle school. When I look at the common core stuff with my young son, he gets what he’s doing in a more fundamental way. In first grade, he basically “discovered” division on his own and was incredibly happy about it. Not something I would have done for sure!
6510 6y ago
perhaps a short list of things for parents to study, a little bit of reading/study material along with some tests. Shouldn't be to hard to pick some topics and crudely compile something for parents who are interested. 4 classes per year seems entirely reasonable.
- genocidicbunny 6y ago
  Unfortunately, the response to that is going to be something to the effect of "Are you calling me stupid?" Many parents are not going to accept that they had a bad education and could use some catch up. Even fewer are going to accept it if the catch up in question is of elementary school level.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    I guess the only way would be to have some sort of educational material that involves both parent and child.
  - 6510 6y ago
    No one is calling anyone stupid, we all know things and there are plenty of things to learn left.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  > 4 classes per year seems entirely reasonable. Suggesting upper middle class stay-at-home moms should take night classes because their addition skills are worse than your average second grader sounds like a great way to _spectacularly_ lose a school board election. These people are king makers in local politics.
  - 6510 6y ago
    hah no, I mean to offer it as a free extras. Someone taught me a cool bit of willful ignorance long ago: After choosing a profession one should try to solve all problems from that domain however poorly it fits. That way one learns relevant stuff rather than lose oneself in a second or 3rd profession. Of course it turns things into impossible challenges but if you get better at what you do the time is always worth it. A gardener should solve all his problems with gardening. You "win" the elections by teaching (deliberately not doing everything else) > The most frustrating thing about education is trying to explain to voters why their child has to learn something (at a young age) that the parent doesn't understand. You mean the most challenging thing is to teach the voter why one has to learn something at a young age. It has teaching in it twice! I would love to share my thoughts but you have near infinitely more experience doing this. (you have been warned haha!) The challenge would be to get people to sit themselves down in front of your blackboard. Use youtube if necessary. Then you simply brag endlessly about what you do, why you do it, what the students though hard work, your effort and good parenting have accomplished and how that will benefit them later on. Use examples! We have a garden 6 by 12 meter with a shed in it 3 by 3 meters. The tiles are 30 by 30 cm. 72 square meter minus 9 is 63 square meters! How many tiles do we need? 10 by 10 is 100 tiles, the tiles are 30 cm long so 10 of them is 3 meters! 3 times 3 is 9 square meter! One tile is therefore? Then you point at mum (the camera) and say correct! 9 meter is 900 cm divided by 100 is 9 square cm per tile! We needed 63 meters which is 6300 cm therefore we need 6300 divided by 9 is 700 tiles! Thanks to my sophisticated arithmetic I'm able to calculate such things and order my tiles without giving it a second thought. Your kids can learn this too (point at the audience or camera again) and take on ever greater challenges in life. ~the end~ I would stand on my desk saying that but you have to give it your own style of course.
eru 6y ago
And German kids aren't even particularly smart about math. The German schooling systems just sucks slightly less, I guess. Perhaps because they don't vote local school boards. The democratic process interferes at state level. (I grew up in Germany and now live in extra-nerdy Singapore.)
watwut 6y ago
The hate toward common core is political and has zero to do with anyone being stupid stay at home mom.
imtringued 6y ago
>Also, parents of fifth grade kids who are frustrated that they can't help their kids understand conditional probabilities, and express that frustration by telling us to "stop teaching their kids about gambling". That's funny. Back in school my statistics/probability classes involved lots of examples showing how rigged lotteries and gambling are. Once you do the math it becomes strikingly obvious. If you don't teach people about gambling they will simply gamble because of ignorance.

Spooky23 6y ago

The ignorance around math is amazing to me. When I went to a public school in NYC in the 80s, I had 1960s textbooks and a pretty poor initial math literacy — I struggled into middle school. When I look at the common core stuff with my young son, he gets what he’s doing in a more fundamental way. In first grade, he basically “discovered” division on his own and was incredibly happy about it. Not something I would have done for sure!

6510 6y ago

perhaps a short list of things for parents to study, a little bit of reading/study material along with some tests. Shouldn't be to hard to pick some topics and crudely compile something for parents who are interested. 4 classes per year seems entirely reasonable.

genocidicbunny 6y ago
Unfortunately, the response to that is going to be something to the effect of "Are you calling me stupid?" Many parents are not going to accept that they had a bad education and could use some catch up. Even fewer are going to accept it if the catch up in question is of elementary school level.
- imtringued 6y ago
  I guess the only way would be to have some sort of educational material that involves both parent and child.
- 6510 6y ago
  No one is calling anyone stupid, we all know things and there are plenty of things to learn left.
throwawaygh 6y ago
> 4 classes per year seems entirely reasonable. Suggesting upper middle class stay-at-home moms should take night classes because their addition skills are worse than your average second grader sounds like a great way to _spectacularly_ lose a school board election. These people are king makers in local politics.
- 6510 6y ago
  hah no, I mean to offer it as a free extras. Someone taught me a cool bit of willful ignorance long ago: After choosing a profession one should try to solve all problems from that domain however poorly it fits. That way one learns relevant stuff rather than lose oneself in a second or 3rd profession. Of course it turns things into impossible challenges but if you get better at what you do the time is always worth it. A gardener should solve all his problems with gardening. You "win" the elections by teaching (deliberately not doing everything else) > The most frustrating thing about education is trying to explain to voters why their child has to learn something (at a young age) that the parent doesn't understand. You mean the most challenging thing is to teach the voter why one has to learn something at a young age. It has teaching in it twice! I would love to share my thoughts but you have near infinitely more experience doing this. (you have been warned haha!) The challenge would be to get people to sit themselves down in front of your blackboard. Use youtube if necessary. Then you simply brag endlessly about what you do, why you do it, what the students though hard work, your effort and good parenting have accomplished and how that will benefit them later on. Use examples! We have a garden 6 by 12 meter with a shed in it 3 by 3 meters. The tiles are 30 by 30 cm. 72 square meter minus 9 is 63 square meters! How many tiles do we need? 10 by 10 is 100 tiles, the tiles are 30 cm long so 10 of them is 3 meters! 3 times 3 is 9 square meter! One tile is therefore? Then you point at mum (the camera) and say correct! 9 meter is 900 cm divided by 100 is 9 square cm per tile! We needed 63 meters which is 6300 cm therefore we need 6300 divided by 9 is 700 tiles! Thanks to my sophisticated arithmetic I'm able to calculate such things and order my tiles without giving it a second thought. Your kids can learn this too (point at the audience or camera again) and take on ever greater challenges in life. ~the end~ I would stand on my desk saying that but you have to give it your own style of course.

eru 6y ago

And German kids aren't even particularly smart about math. The German schooling systems just sucks slightly less, I guess. Perhaps because they don't vote local school boards. The democratic process interferes at state level. (I grew up in Germany and now live in extra-nerdy Singapore.)

watwut 6y ago

The hate toward common core is political and has zero to do with anyone being stupid stay at home mom.

imtringued 6y ago

>Also, parents of fifth grade kids who are frustrated that they can't help their kids understand conditional probabilities, and express that frustration by telling us to "stop teaching their kids about gambling". That's funny. Back in school my statistics/probability classes involved lots of examples showing how rigged lotteries and gambling are. Once you do the math it becomes strikingly obvious. If you don't teach people about gambling they will simply gamble because of ignorance.