10 ms·

Common Core Sheets

55 points by quyleanh 3y ago

quacked 3y ago
One afternoon during my senior year of college, I was procrastinating by trying to estimate the height of the stack of every assignment I'd ever completed since kindergarten, and suddenly realized that I had produced basically nothing of worth during my 16 years of school. Since about 3rd grade I'd felt busy and productive every school year, because I'd been diligently slogging through mountains of assignments, worksheets, problem sets, and essays. However, looking back, if I measured my production in terms of items produced that had any lasting value (artwork, essays, code that might be used outside of an assignment, etc.) I was at fewer than 2-3 "things" per year. If I measured my learnedness in terms of what I could actually recite out of the hundreds of thousands of things I'd "learned", I could probably only recite 5-6% of it, and most of it was gone. Other people typically say that all of that slogging was useful, and it was "teaching me to think critically" or "giving me practice at learning", and even if I don't remember that stuff it's still important for me to have looked at it. I tentatively agree that it's okay to take a shallow pass at some material without really mastering it, because then you have a basis to build on later. But I'm not so sure that my time in school was well-used, and I have a vague sense that I've reached less than a tenth of my intellectual potential. By seventh grade I had already optimized my "learning style" to cram hard at the last minute, burn assignments down as quickly as possible, and then aggressively purge the memories of the knowledge as soon as the next "unit" began. Many subjects I now find interesting were practically traumatizing in school because of the stress and workload. Now that I'm investigating them independently, it's far easier to remember facts. I now think that the only use for tests and worksheets is for self-reflection, for the learner to discern whether or not they understand the concept the problem set is related to. A really enlightened education would never weigh the completion of the problem set over the mastery of the problem set, and there would be no factory-production model of forcing students to complete work and then gaslighting them into thinking they'd "learned" something or that their time was well-spent. I don't know if that's possible to set up at scale, though.
- reidjs 3y ago
  I think a lot of it does come down to scale. Imagine the challenge of being a teacher tasked with teaching (science/english/math/etc) to 150-200 unique kids per day, often with little to no budget or support from admin, parents, etc. Unless you are truly exceptional at teaching, you have to teach to the middle to compensate, or your class will tear itself apart.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    Also in the US the incentives for going into teaching are totally wrong. We should train the best and brightest so that our kids learn from them, but the salaries and working conditions are so bad that it actively discourages people.
    - AvocadoPanic 3y ago
      What's the advantage to having the best and brightest teachers if they're in a room of average and dim students? Both teachers and students should be tracked by ability. Best teachers for the best students. Mid teachers for mid students.
      - bobthepanda 3y ago
        that assumes that average and dim are constants and unchangeable. but the point remains is that we're not even getting the best teachers to begin with, because the job is so unattractive if it's not your passion.
        AvocadoPanic 3y ago
        Average and dim usually seem pretty fixed by adulthood. Were teachers better in previous generations? I remember the majority of mine being excellent. Might it be more unattractive now than 30 - 40 years ago?
        3y ago
cushychicken 3y ago
Hey, cool. I run a parallel / tangentially related little Ed tech business at www.reportcardcomments.com.
killjoywashere 3y ago
As someone with a degree in physics, who's mother is a math teacher and helped build a state level math curriculum, it's hard to convey how much I hate Common Core as a parent. My son mercifully avoided it entirely by being too far ahead and then hopping out of state during the worst of it. But my daughter took it with both barrels between the eyes. Teachers who don't get it blaming students who ask their parents who try to explain and get told, by everyone, they don't understand. Batshit crazy conceptual jumps (If you have 17 triangles and divide them into 3 equal groups, how many sides are in the remainder?). And then moving out of the California school districts, the new district didn't recognize those courses at all, so when she aced precalc and they didn't have enough kids to take calc, they had her take ... algebra 2. WTF? Then when she went to back to California for college, they made her take precalc AGAIN! Can you demolish someone's motivation any more? Fuck common core and the entire privileged shitshow of East Coast math professor elites that came up with this crap.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- entropi 3y ago
  As someone who is from outside the US, and only occasionally exposed to common core via hatred on reddit, hn, etc., I would like to ask: what is the deal with it? I am kind of having trouble understanding what exactly it is. The examples I see about it are usually extremely simple to the point of having no information or testing ability, and others are just batshit insane like your example.
  - gs17 3y ago
    The hatred is mostly from it forcing specific strategies for simple tasks. The intent is to help students gain better intuition for math and gain multiple problem solving tools. But you end up with children who didn't understand the lesson taking homework to their parents who know a "simpler" way not understanding what's being asked for and everyone getting frustrated. I fully understand, in school my issue was always getting marked down for not being able to show my work for mental math. A lot of the bad examples of it you'll see are just poor teaching (e.g. the "3 x 5 can't be 5 + 5 + 5, it's 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3" image), and we had that before Common Core. That guy's "batshit insane" example is just a slightly obtuse word problem.
loco5niner 3y ago
Just for kicks, I had it generate some printable flash cards, questions on front, answers on back. It's impossible to print them correctly, as they are produced because the answer is on the upper-left quadrant of the first page and the answer in in the upper-left quadrant of the second page Try it for yourself: https://www.commoncoresheets.com/flash-example/8/flash-cards?cartf=&create=1&sheet_id=8&path=&ccss=&background_colors%5B%5D=%23b1e2f2&background=1&card_title=&back_of_card=answer https://www.commoncoresheets.com/flash-example/8/flash-cards... What kind of Common Core Crap is that?
- loco5niner 3y ago
  Ok, that last bit was a bit over the line. I'm sure whoever created this was just trying to be helpful. I got over-enthusiastic about criticizing Common Core and went too far. Sorry.
- numbsafari 3y ago
  It’s probably just a bug. I don’t see how it would have anything to do with the Common Core.
- Izkata 3y ago
  You're supposed to cut them apart on the dotted line first, then the number in the lower right tells you which two to tape together. Not print two sided on one paper. It's stupid but not impossible.
  - rokkitmensch 3y ago
    [dead]
AnetteJourdan 3y ago
[dead]

55 points by quyleanh 3y ago

One afternoon during my senior year of college, I was procrastinating by trying to estimate the height of the stack of every assignment I'd ever completed since kindergarten, and suddenly realized that I had produced basically nothing of worth during my 16 years of school. Since about 3rd grade I'd felt busy and productive every school year, because I'd been diligently slogging through mountains of assignments, worksheets, problem sets, and essays. However, looking back, if I measured my production in terms of items produced that had any lasting value (artwork, essays, code that might be used outside of an assignment, etc.) I was at fewer than 2-3 "things" per year. If I measured my learnedness in terms of what I could actually recite out of the hundreds of thousands of things I'd "learned", I could probably only recite 5-6% of it, and most of it was gone. Other people typically say that all of that slogging was useful, and it was "teaching me to think critically" or "giving me practice at learning", and even if I don't remember that stuff it's still important for me to have looked at it. I tentatively agree that it's okay to take a shallow pass at some material without really mastering it, because then you have a basis to build on later. But I'm not so sure that my time in school was well-used, and I have a vague sense that I've reached less than a tenth of my intellectual potential. By seventh grade I had already optimized my "learning style" to cram hard at the last minute, burn assignments down as quickly as possible, and then aggressively purge the memories of the knowledge as soon as the next "unit" began. Many subjects I now find interesting were practically traumatizing in school because of the stress and workload. Now that I'm investigating them independently, it's far easier to remember facts. I now think that the only use for tests and worksheets is for self-reflection, for the learner to discern whether or not they understand the concept the problem set is related to. A really enlightened education would never weigh the completion of the problem set over the mastery of the problem set, and there would be no factory-production model of forcing students to complete work and then gaslighting them into thinking they'd "learned" something or that their time was well-spent. I don't know if that's possible to set up at scale, though.

reidjs 3y ago
I think a lot of it does come down to scale. Imagine the challenge of being a teacher tasked with teaching (science/english/math/etc) to 150-200 unique kids per day, often with little to no budget or support from admin, parents, etc. Unless you are truly exceptional at teaching, you have to teach to the middle to compensate, or your class will tear itself apart.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  Also in the US the incentives for going into teaching are totally wrong. We should train the best and brightest so that our kids learn from them, but the salaries and working conditions are so bad that it actively discourages people.
  - AvocadoPanic 3y ago
    What's the advantage to having the best and brightest teachers if they're in a room of average and dim students? Both teachers and students should be tracked by ability. Best teachers for the best students. Mid teachers for mid students.
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      that assumes that average and dim are constants and unchangeable. but the point remains is that we're not even getting the best teachers to begin with, because the job is so unattractive if it's not your passion.
      - AvocadoPanic 3y ago
        Average and dim usually seem pretty fixed by adulthood. Were teachers better in previous generations? I remember the majority of mine being excellent. Might it be more unattractive now than 30 - 40 years ago?
        3y ago

cushychicken 3y ago

Hey, cool. I run a parallel / tangentially related little Ed tech business at www.reportcardcomments.com.

killjoywashere 3y ago

As someone with a degree in physics, who's mother is a math teacher and helped build a state level math curriculum, it's hard to convey how much I hate Common Core as a parent. My son mercifully avoided it entirely by being too far ahead and then hopping out of state during the worst of it. But my daughter took it with both barrels between the eyes. Teachers who don't get it blaming students who ask their parents who try to explain and get told, by everyone, they don't understand. Batshit crazy conceptual jumps (If you have 17 triangles and divide them into 3 equal groups, how many sides are in the remainder?). And then moving out of the California school districts, the new district didn't recognize those courses at all, so when she aced precalc and they didn't have enough kids to take calc, they had her take ... algebra 2. WTF? Then when she went to back to California for college, they made her take precalc AGAIN! Can you demolish someone's motivation any more? Fuck common core and the entire privileged shitshow of East Coast math professor elites that came up with this crap.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
entropi 3y ago
As someone who is from outside the US, and only occasionally exposed to common core via hatred on reddit, hn, etc., I would like to ask: what is the deal with it? I am kind of having trouble understanding what exactly it is. The examples I see about it are usually extremely simple to the point of having no information or testing ability, and others are just batshit insane like your example.
- gs17 3y ago
  The hatred is mostly from it forcing specific strategies for simple tasks. The intent is to help students gain better intuition for math and gain multiple problem solving tools. But you end up with children who didn't understand the lesson taking homework to their parents who know a "simpler" way not understanding what's being asked for and everyone getting frustrated. I fully understand, in school my issue was always getting marked down for not being able to show my work for mental math. A lot of the bad examples of it you'll see are just poor teaching (e.g. the "3 x 5 can't be 5 + 5 + 5, it's 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3" image), and we had that before Common Core. That guy's "batshit insane" example is just a slightly obtuse word problem.

loco5niner 3y ago

Just for kicks, I had it generate some printable flash cards, questions on front, answers on back. It's impossible to print them correctly, as they are produced because the answer is on the upper-left quadrant of the first page and the answer in in the upper-left quadrant of the second page Try it for yourself: https://www.commoncoresheets.com/flash-example/8/flash-cards?cartf=&create=1&sheet_id=8&path=&ccss=&background_colors%5B%5D=%23b1e2f2&background=1&card_title=&back_of_card=answer https://www.commoncoresheets.com/flash-example/8/flash-cards... What kind of Common Core Crap is that?

loco5niner 3y ago
Ok, that last bit was a bit over the line. I'm sure whoever created this was just trying to be helpful. I got over-enthusiastic about criticizing Common Core and went too far. Sorry.
numbsafari 3y ago
It’s probably just a bug. I don’t see how it would have anything to do with the Common Core.
Izkata 3y ago
You're supposed to cut them apart on the dotted line first, then the number in the lower right tells you which two to tape together. Not print two sided on one paper. It's stupid but not impossible.
- rokkitmensch 3y ago
  [dead]

AnetteJourdan 3y ago

[dead]