I think this quote from a parent at the very end of the article is quite telling: "To me, math is numbers, it's concrete, it's black-and-white. I don't understa

I think this quote from a parent at the very end of the article is quite telling: "To me, math is numbers, it's concrete, it's black-and-white. I don't understand why you need to bring this conceptual thing into math — at least not at this age." I am not a professional mathematician, but I get the overwhelming impression from professional mathematicians that "this conceptual thing" is really quite important in the big picture of math. To me this reflects a parent who hasn't used mathematical concepts in a real way and who doesn't understand the value in anything but arithmetic. It's the same mindset as people who throw their hands up at algebra because suddenly letters are mixed with numbers and they aren't doing multiplication tables anymore. Edit: I don't mean this as a personal attack. It's just a problem of educating parents. People need to understand that conceptual math and abstract reasoning may seem like strange things to teach children, but that they will, in fact, provide the competitive edge for our kids. Perhaps the Common Core way of teaching this is terrible and makes children cry, but we shouldn't throw it out based on poor implementation.