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Here's the thing. You like it when there's wide, sweeping cirriculum on the Federal level... when you agree with it. But what happens if there's enough politi

Here's the thing. You like it when there's wide, sweeping cirriculum on the Federal level... when you agree with it. But what happens if there's enough political pressure (it is a midterm election cycle) to add ID into the cirriculum? Or maybe they look at feel-good math that is just teaching to the test [1]? And that's the issue. Centralized power is great when you agree with it, but terrible in the wrong hands. [1] http://www.momdot.com/common-core-is-making-me-stupider/ http://www.momdot.com/common-core-is-making-me-stupider/

rmrfrmrf 13y ago
I agree with your point. I suppose I'm fortunate enough to also agree with the goals of Common Core as they are today. Onto that article, however: 1. I never use an academic degree as an indicator of intellectual capacity. I find that some people are so objective-driven that they zoom right past the point and straight to rageville when they don't understand something. 2. A simple Google search on front-end estimation would have helped this mom realize that the example given on the sheet is incorrect. I will concede that an effective teacher would have realized that the example given is incorrect and would have corrected it. (In front end estimation, you round the leftmost digit, so the example should actually be 400 + 300, not 300 + 200). IMHO 700 is actually a decent estimate for 645, so I don't think there's a problem with the math itself. It's not really feel-good math, but I think some people take for granted that estimation is not an innate ability. Now, it becomes another discussion altogether when the teacher is so horrible that they refuse to accept that the example is wrong. But, I don't think I've seen evidence of that, so I won't accuse anyone of anything. EDIT: I just read some of the comments in that article, and it looks like some districts teach front-end estimation with truncation rather than rounding, in which case 300 + 200 = 500 would be correct. Here are a few more things to note: the parents here assume that estimation and rounding are the same thing. That in itself isn't true. More importantly, though, look at the goal of the estimation -- to see if the actual answer, 645, is reasonable. That's not the same thing as asking if 500 is a reasonable estimate of 645. I think the point of this exercise is for kids to say "ok, if I add these two numbers together, I expect to get a 3-digit number somewhere in the ballpark of 500." That is to say: if I add 354 and 291, I shouldn't expect to get 20000 or 7 or 81 or 9750. It's just a simple way of checking your work using a quick, easy method that you can do in your head. Again, I find the value in this -- adding "common sense" to the curriculum is definitely something I can get behind, but I understand that parents who aren't used to "common sense on paper" will struggle.

rmrfrmrf 13y ago

I agree with your point. I suppose I'm fortunate enough to also agree with the goals of Common Core as they are today. Onto that article, however: 1. I never use an academic degree as an indicator of intellectual capacity. I find that some people are so objective-driven that they zoom right past the point and straight to rageville when they don't understand something. 2. A simple Google search on front-end estimation would have helped this mom realize that the example given on the sheet is incorrect. I will concede that an effective teacher would have realized that the example given is incorrect and would have corrected it. (In front end estimation, you round the leftmost digit, so the example should actually be 400 + 300, not 300 + 200). IMHO 700 is actually a decent estimate for 645, so I don't think there's a problem with the math itself. It's not really feel-good math, but I think some people take for granted that estimation is not an innate ability. Now, it becomes another discussion altogether when the teacher is so horrible that they refuse to accept that the example is wrong. But, I don't think I've seen evidence of that, so I won't accuse anyone of anything. EDIT: I just read some of the comments in that article, and it looks like some districts teach front-end estimation with truncation rather than rounding, in which case 300 + 200 = 500 would be correct. Here are a few more things to note: the parents here assume that estimation and rounding are the same thing. That in itself isn't true. More importantly, though, look at the goal of the estimation -- to see if the actual answer, 645, is reasonable. That's not the same thing as asking if 500 is a reasonable estimate of 645. I think the point of this exercise is for kids to say "ok, if I add these two numbers together, I expect to get a 3-digit number somewhere in the ballpark of 500." That is to say: if I add 354 and 291, I shouldn't expect to get 20000 or 7 or 81 or 9750. It's just a simple way of checking your work using a quick, easy method that you can do in your head. Again, I find the value in this -- adding "common sense" to the curriculum is definitely something I can get behind, but I understand that parents who aren't used to "common sense on paper" will struggle.